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As per a team of researchers surveying Antarctica have come up with a startling discovery of a canyon as deep as Grand Canyon, only much longer. The recent study published in journal Geology reveals that the world's largest canyon may be as deep as half a mile and cut across East Antarctica by as many as 700 miles. Grand Canyon is not more than 277 miles in length, as reported by Eureka Alert.

The scientists in 2013 discovered a huge canyon under the ice sheet of Greenland that was already much bigger than the Grand Canyon. However, the new Antarctic Canyon will be bigger than both these canyons, said NASA. The only obstacle to whether or not Antarctic Canyon is largest is the ice sheet. Researchers are working on airborne radio-echo sound that will help them confirm the size and the length of the formation. This data will be available by the end of 2016, most likely.

This huge chasm is supposedly located at a point that the scientists refer to as 'Poles of Ignorance'. The topology of this area is considered to fall at the end of the earth where only little is known to the man like that on Mars. With the help of satellite imagery, the researchers determined that small section of the canyon where they have the data from radio-echo sound system, the shape of the landscape below the ice sheet seems to have been carved by the ancient water. This water may have been present before the growth of the ice sheet or could have been created by water flowing below the ice, as reported by Fusion

According to co-Author Professor Martin Siegert, from the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London in the UK, "discovering a gigantic new chasm that dwarfs the Grand Canyon is a tantalizing prospect" but also one with real-world applications, as per Imperial College London