Beneath a glacier in the Transantarctic Mountains some 12 million years ago, the downhill flow of a massive, growing reservoir of meltwater was restrained by walls of ice. As the reservoir grew, it became too heavy for the walls to hold. They gave way, releasing an explosive surge of water nearly 13 times the volume of water draining through the Amazon River. As it ripped through the valley below, the water gushed into the bedrock, tearing away chunks of rock the size of refrigerators, hurling them miles down Antarctica's Wright Valley. In its wake, the subglacial flash flood left a spectacular maze of channels, some hundreds of meters deep, incised into the stone, an intricate complex of meandering pathways called the Labyrinth.
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