Greenland is essentially a ring of hills above sea level surrounding a big depression in the middle that is below sea level. I once went about a mile or so up onto the Greenland ice cap. There were several snow trains being loaded. We talked to one of the scientists about what they were doing. They were doing research up in the middle of the ice cap. They were extracting ice cores. This scientist said that the ice was about 9,000 ft thick where they were doing the research. It is my understanding that it is as thick as 12,000 ft in some places. All that ice and no scotch.
Quote:
| The Greenland Ice Sheet occupies stom 1,700,000 km^2. This is 80 percent of the area of the island of Greenland, where ice covers all but narrow land fringes. The ice sheet contains almost 3 million km^3 of ice. In a general way, the ice froms a single, broadly arched, doubly convex lens. The ice thickness measures close to 3 km at its greatest. The center of Greenland is actually depressed under the great ice load, in conformity with the principle of isostasy, because 3 km of glacial ice is roughly equivalent to a rock layer at least 1 km thick. |
--Strahler, Arthur N.
Science and Earth History. Prometheus Books. Amherst. 1987. p. 245.