ALBERT

Description: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet overlies the West Antarctic Rift System about which, due to the comprehensive ice cover, we have only limited and sporadic knowledge of volcanic activity and its extent. Improving our understanding of subglacial volcanic activity across the province is important both for helping to constrain how volcanism and rifting may have influenced ice-sheet growth and decay over previous glacial cycles, and in light of concerns over whether enhanced geothermal heat fluxes and subglacial melting may contribute to instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here, we use ice-sheet bed-elevation data to locate individual conical edifices protruding upwards into the ice across West Antarctica, and we propose that these edifices represent subglacial volcanoes. We used aeromagnetic, aerogravity, satellite imagery and databases of confirmed volcanoes to support this interpretation. The overall result presented here constitutes a first inventory of West Antarctica's subglacial volcanism. We identified 138 volcanoes, 91 of which have not previously been identified, and which are widely distributed throughout the deep basins of West Antarctica, but are especially concentrated and orientated along the 〉3000 km central axis of the West Antarctic Rift System.

Description: Over the past decades, significant efforts have been made to understand the nature, dynamics and evolution of volcanic systems. In parallel, the continuous demographic expansion and extensive urbanization of volcanic areas have increased the exposure of our society to these natural phenomena. This increases the need to improve our capacities to accurately assess projected volcanic hazards and their potential socioeconomic and environmental impact, and Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands are no exception. More than a hundred volcanoes have been identified in Antarctica, some of which are entirely buried beneath the ice sheet and others as submarine volcanoes. Of these, at least eight large (basal diameters 〉 c. 20-30 km) volcanoes are known to be active and pose a considerable threat to scientific and ever-increasing tourism activities being carried out in the region. Despite the scientific and socioeconomic interest, many aspects of the past volcanic activity and magmatic processes in Antarctica, and current volcanic hazards and risks, remain unknown. Moreover, many of Antarctica’s volcanoes preserve a remarkable history of the eruptive environment, from which multiple parameters of past configurations of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) can be deduced. Given the critical role that the AIS plays in regulating Earth’s climate, Antarctica’s volcanoes therefore can be regarded as the ground truth for current models of past climates derived from modelling and studies of marine sediments. Here, we provide a succinct overview of the evolution of volcanism and magmatism in Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic region over the past 200 million years. Then, we briefly review the current state of knowledge of the most crucial aspects regarding Antarctica’s volcanic and magmatic processes, and the contributions volcanic studies have made to our understanding of ice sheet history and evolution, geothermal heat flow, as well as present-day and future volcanic hazard and risk. A principal objective is to highlight the problems and critical limitations of the current state of knowledge and to provide suggestions for future potential directions of volcanic-driven investigations in Antarctica. Finally, we also discuss and assess the importance and scope of education and outreach activities specifically relating to Antarctic volcanism, and within the context of broader polar sciences.

Description: Published

Description: 107941

Description: OSV2: Complessità dei processi vulcanici: approcci multidisciplinari e multiparametrici

Description: JCR Journal

Description: Proglacial lakes, whose numbers have been growing around the world, may drive accelerated glacier retreat and provide valuable records of past glacier and climatic changes. Despite their importance, few studies have investigated the sedimentary properties and processes acting within large proglacial lakes. Lago Argentino (LArg) is a 1,500 km2 ice-contact lake on the eastern flank of the Southern Patagonian Icefield. Here, we describe the results from a detailed analysis of 47 sediment cores obtained throughout this lake basin, supplemented with remotely sensed data. We show that: (a) LArg exhibits a seasonal variation in sediment properties (varves); (b) varve formation results from three distinct processes, driven by seasonal changes in glacial sediment input, seasonal changes in fluvial sediment input, and seasonal variations in lake mixing; and (c) distance from glacier calving fronts provides the first-order control on sediment grain size and accumulation rate. Our findings highlight the exceptional preservation of annual laminations within proglacial lakes, their potential for reconstructing past glacier changes, and their relevance for forecasting future glacier–lake interactions.

Description: Tropical glacier melt provides valuable water to surrounding communities, but climate change is projected to cause the demise of many of these glaciers within the coming century. Understanding the future of tropical glaciers requires a detailed record of their thicknesses and volumes, which is currently lacking in the Northern Andes. We calculate present-day (2015–2021) ice-thicknesses for all glaciers in Colombia and Ecuador using six different methods, and combine these into multi-model ensemble mean ice thickness and volume maps. We compare our results against available field-based measurements, and show that current ice volumes in Ecuador and Colombia are 2.49 ± 0.25 km3 and 1.68 ± 0.24 km3 respectively. We detected no motion on any remaining ice in Venezuela. The overall ice volume in the region, 4.17 ± 0.35 km3, is half of the previous best estimate of 8.11 km3. These data can be used to better evaluate the status and distribution of water resources, as input for models of future glacier change, and to assess regional geohazards associated with ice-clad volcanoes.

Description: The Northern and Southern Patagonian Icefields are rapidly losing volume, with current volume loss rates greater than 20 km3 a−1. However, details of the spatial and temporal distribution of their volume loss remain uncertain. We evaluate the rate of 21st-century glacier volume loss using the hydrological balance of four glacierised Patagonian river basins. We isolate the streamflow contribution from changes in ice volume and evaluate whether the rate of volume loss has decreased, increased, or remained constant. Out of 11 glacierised sub-basins, seven exhibit significant increases in the rate of ice volume loss, with a 2006–2019 time integrated anomaly in the rate of glacier volume loss of 135 ± 50 km3. This anomaly in the rate of glacier-volume-loss is spatially heterogeneous, varying from a 7.06 ± 1.69 m a−1 increase in ice loss to a 3.18 ± 1.48 m a−1 decrease in ice loss. Greatest increases in the rate of ice loss are found in the early spring and late summer, suggesting a prolonging of the melt season. Our results highlight increasing, and in some cases accelerating, rates of volume loss of Patagonia's lake-terminating glaciers, with a 2006–2019 anomaly in the rate of glacier volume loss contributing an additional 0.027 ± 0.01 mm a−1 of global mean sea-level rise.