With exceptional power of brain & muscle human have discovered many secrets of Earth, what indigenous tribe would call Pacha Mama. We have already reached the Moon surface and have explored other planets (not manned-missions). Interestingly, there are still a number of places on Earth that are yet to be uncovered & explored.

Inhospitable environments and devastating natural forces that make some places least explored. On the other hand, it’s a blessing. Because, it helps to keep even a few places in its original form.

Here is to the world of ice & water, high climbs & driest sand.

Greenland.

Greenland is the largest island in the world. It is also the Northernmost country in the world. The Kaffeklunnen Island of Greenland is just 442 miles from the North Pole. Greenland is spread across a vast area of 8,36,300 square miles and 80 percent of it is covered by ice. It is the exact reason why Greenland remains least explored and underpopulated. By 2017, only 56239 people lived on this large island.

Some ice sheets of this island have a thickness of 3200 meters. It is also estimated that Greenland ice sheets are aged between 400,000 and 800,00 years.

Greenland is also home to glaciers, ice flowing rivers, midnight Sun, hot springs and Northern lights. In case of transportation, there are no roads or rail networks in Greenland. To get around, you can choose a snowmobile, boat, plane or helicopter.

Gakkel Ridge.

Running between Greenland and Siberia, the Gakkel ridge is the deepest mid-ocean ridge in the world, reaching depths of up to three miles. It’s no surprise then that the darkest corners of the Gakkel Ridge remain largely unexplored. Despite this, the underwater mountain chain is where scientists found the first Arctic hydrothermal vents, only in 2003.

Hydrothermal vents are a hot-spot for sea organisms, with up to 100,000 times higher density of organisms than the surrounding ocean, and with those in the Gakkel ridge being so isolated from other oceans, these vents are likely to contain species found nowhere else on the planet. In 2007 researchers conducted the AGAVE (Arctic Gakkel Vents Expedition) mission, in which they discovered large amounts of pyroclastic volcanic deposits, which appear as glass-like structures on the sea floor. The group used an under-water robot to explore the area and found “mats” of large amounts of microbial life.

Carter Seamount.

First studied in detail in 2013 by a team from the University of Bristol, Carter is one of thousands of seamounts formed from extinct, underwater volcanoes -most remain un-studied. Carter rises to 200m below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean and is covered in a rich ecosystem of corals and sponges. It is estimated that there are over one million submarine volcanoes, many of them still active, found in hot spots around the world. Seamounts are one of the most common marine ecosystems, and attract a variety of fish, corals and mammals. Unfortunately, in recent years the variety of species found at seamounts has reduced due to over-fishing, in particular bottom trawling.

Silfa fissure, Iceland.

Located in the middle of Iceland, this is the only place where you can swim in the crack between two continents. It is here that the Eurasian and North American plates meet, creating a crevice with a depth of up to 63 metres. Its fissure gets 2cm wider every year, building tension between the plates and the Earth, which is released by earthquakes.

The freshwater is claimed to be the ‘clearest water on Earth’, with visibility up to 100m, and as a consequence the fissure is a popular snorkelling and diving location – despite the water temperature reaching as low as two degrees Celsius. The water within the fissure is particularly clean as the glacial water has been filtered through porous rock, clean enough to drink as you dive in fact.

Twilight zone reefs in the Chagos Islands.

Very few of the world’s coral reefs have been studied deeper than 40m, in the part of the ocean known as the twilight zone. The mesophotic coral habitats found here are adapted to very low light levels, and although many of the coral species found in the twilight zone can also be found in shallower waters, many have distinctive shapes more suited to the lack of light.

In the remote central Indian Ocean, healthy deep reefs in the Chagos Islands could help shallower areas recover from the mass coral bleaching of 2016. Bleaching occurs when a coral becomes stressed by its environment, for example due to a change in temperature through climate change. Although bleached coral is not dead, it is at a higher risk of being damaged. Shallow water coral reefs are more susceptible to bleaching due to exposure to the Sun, and twilight zone reefs provide a refuge for shallower species that may be threatened. Exploration of the area is limited by the remoteness of the islands, and until only recently dives were restricted to 25m, therefore much still remains unknown about the mesophotic reefs.

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