This paper documents a larger degree of mixing in ice near the bottom of an ice sheet than described, or suspected, previously. It shows, thanks to favourable circumstances due to CO2 and CH4 production underneath the ice, that flow‐induced mixing within the basal ice has taken place at the scale of a few centimeters in the GRIP core. Such a mechanism must be considered when interpreting the ice properties in the bottom part of ice sheets and must be taken into account as a potential process of layer disruption in the low levels of the Central Greenland ice cores. Copyright 1995 by the American Geophysical Union.