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The newfound landscape sits near the edge of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet in a region called Wilkes Land.

The 450-square-mile ice shelf was located in an area known as Wilkes Land; the loss occurred in mid-March.

Co-author Michiel van den Broeke, a professor of Polar Meteorology at Utrecht University, said the thaw of Wilkes Land in East Antarctica was an emerging area of science.

To the west of Totten, in Wilkes Land, the rate of height loss has doubled since 2009, with glaciers losing height by about two and a half metres to date.

In previous flights over Wilkes Land, van Ommen’s team discovered that 21% of the Totten glacier catchment is more than 1 kilometre below sea level — an area 100 times larger than previous estimates.