The New Video of One of the Scariest Places on Earth

The “grounding line” of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is, without hyperbole, one of the most important places on one of the most important objects in the natural world. And scientists now have video of it for the first time.

Earlier this week, researchers published the first images of the place where this behemoth glacier, which is both one of the world’s largest and most vulnerable, sits on the deep seafloor and bleeds water into the ocean. In other words, they have made a film of sea-level rise in progress, showing ice from the land becoming water in the ocean.

But this may understate the importance of these visuals. Thwaites is one of a handful of glaciers in the world that could really matter in our lifetime: If it collapses, it could do so rapidly, cataclysmically spiking global sea levels during the next few collapse depends almost entirely on its grounding line and the processes shown in this video.