Under 30m. of ice: Icy discovery: NASA uncovers a secret buried for 60 years

An unexpected discovery recently emerged from the icy depths of Greenland. NASA, during a scientific flyby in April 2024, revealed the contours of an American military base buried for decades under 30 meters of ice: Camp Century.

A city of 55 hectares under the ice

Built in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, this ambitious project embodied both the ingenuity and the strategic race of the time. Imagined as an underground city by the American army, Camp Century extended over kilometers of tunnels dug into the ice.

Revealed by “Earth Observatory”, the 55-hectare “City under the ice” complex housed up to 200 soldiers, offering impressive infrastructure for the time: dormitories, laboratory, hospital, chapel, cinema room, and even a reactor portable nuclear power plant, a world first in the Arctic.

Originally, this project was part of the secret “Project Iceworm”, intended to position up to 600 ballistic nuclear missiles under the ice cap, aimed at the Soviet Union. But these strategic ambitions were abandoned in 1967.

Tons of contaminated waste

If Camp Century fascinates with its technological audacity, it also raises environmental concerns.

Tons of contaminated waste – fuel, sewage and radioactive residue – left behind risk resurfacing with global warming, threatening the fragile ecosystem of the Arctic. NASA glaciologist Chad Greene said: “These discoveries reveal both a technological feat and a colossal environmental challenge. »

Collect waste or wait?

Thanks to advanced radar technology on board a Gulfstream III aircraft, NASA obtained images of unprecedented precision.

As the ice cap melts rapidly, debates are increasing today: should we recover this waste or wait for the ice to swallow it up again? Scientific research and political decisions in the coming years will determine the fate of this emblematic base, witness to both the ambitions and the errors of the past.