overlying

This month, the researchers will return to Waesche, looking for more rocks that could confirm whether the loss of overlying ice caused Waesche to wake up.

When combined with gravity data, the model computes the ocean's depth as well as the thickness of the overlying ice.

As a result, the top few inches of soil or rock heat up rapidly over the course of a day, and in turn warm the overlying air.

"There are places where the water is almost at the pressure of the overlying ice, so just a little more pressure is needed to push up the ice," Rignot said.

It is this stray field which produces new magnetic microstructures in the overlying ferromagnetic layer: spins emanate radially from the structure centre, as in a radial vortex.