ALBERT

Beschreibung: Knowledge of Antarctica's sedimentary basins builds our understanding of the coupled evolution of tectonics, ice, ocean, and climate. Sedimentary basins have properties distinct from basement-dominated regions that impact ice-sheet dynamics, potentially influencing future ice-sheet change. Despite their importance, our knowledge of Antarctic sedimentary basins is restricted. Remoteness, the harsh environment, the overlying ice sheet, ice shelves, and sea ice all make fieldwork challenging. Nonetheless, in the past decade the geophysics community has made great progress in internationally coordinated data collection and compilation with parallel advances in data processing and analysis supporting a new insight into Antarctica's subglacial environment. Here, we summarize recent progress in understanding Antarctica's sedimentary basins. We review advances in the technical capability of radar, potential fields, seismic, and electromagnetic techniques to detect and characterize basins beneath ice and advances in integrated multi-data interpretation including machine-learning approaches. These new capabilities permit a continent-wide mapping of Antarctica's sedimentary basins and their characteristics, aiding definition of the tectonic development of the continent. Crucially, Antarctica's sedimentary basins interact with the overlying ice sheet through dynamic feedbacks that have the potential to contribute to rapid ice-sheet change. Looking ahead, future research directions include techniques to increase data coverage within logistical constraints, and resolving major knowledge gaps, including insufficient sampling of the ice-sheet bed and poor definition of subglacial basin structure and stratigraphy. Translating the knowledge of sedimentary basin processes into ice-sheet modeling studies is critical to underpin better capacity to predict future change.

Beschreibung: Radio Echo Sounding (RES) surveys conducted in May 2010 and April 2011 revealed a 2 km2 flat area with increased bed reflectivity at the base of Isunnguata Sermia at the western margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet. This flat reflector was located within a localized subglacial hydraulic potential (hydropotential) minimum, as part of a complex and elongated trough system. By analogy with comparable features in Antarctica, the initial interpretation of such a feature was a potential subglacial lake. In September 2013 a co-located seismic survey revealed a 1,750 m by 540 and 37 m thick stratified lens-shaped bedform at the base of a subglacial trough system. Amplitude Versus Angle (AVA) analysis yields a derived reflection coefficient R = 0.09 ± 0.14 indicative of consolidated sediments possibly overlain by dilatant till. The bed and flank on the northern side of the trough consist of unconsolidated, possibly water-bearing sediments with R = −0.10 ± 0.08, whereas on the southern side it consists of more consolidated material. We interpret the trough as a key component of the wider subglacial drainage network, for which the sediments on its northern side act as a localized water-storage reservoir. Given the observation of seasonally forming and rapidly draining supraglacial meltwater lakes in this area, we interpret the lens-shaped bedform as deposited by episodically ponding meltwater within the subglacial trough system. Our results highlight the importance of transient subglacial hydrological and sedimentological processes such as drainage events for the interaction of ice sheets and their substrates, to understand ice dynamics in a warming climate.

Beschreibung: We present a 700 km airborne electromagnetic survey of late-spring fast ice and sub-ice platelet layer (SIPL) thickness distributions from McMurdo Sound to Cape Adare, providing a first-time inventory of fast ice thickness close to its annual maximum. The overall mode of the consolidated ice (including snow) thickness was 1.9 m, less than its mean of 2.6 ± 1.0 m. Our survey was partitioned into level and rough ice, and SIPL thickness was estimated under level ice. Although level ice, with a mode of 2.0 m and mean of 2.0 ± 0.6 m, was prevalent, rough ice occupied 41% of the transect by length, 50% by volume, and had a mode of 3.3 m and mean of 3.2 ± 1.2 m. The thickest 10% of rough ice was almost 6 m on average, inclusive of a 2 km segment thicker than 8 m in Moubray Bay. The thickest ice occurred predominantly along the northwestern Ross Sea, due to compaction against the coast. The adjacent pack ice was thinner (by ∼1 m) than the first-year fast ice. In Silverfish Bay, offshore Hells Gate Ice Shelf, New Harbor, and Granite Harbor, the SIPL transect volume was a significant fraction (0.30) of the consolidated ice volume. The thickest 10% of SIPLs averaged nearly 3 m thick, and near Hells Gate Ice Shelf the SIPL was almost 10 m thick, implying vigorous heat loss to the ocean (∼90 W m −2). We conclude that polynya-induced ice deformation and interaction with continental ice influence fast ice thickness in the western Ross Sea.