scholarly journals Tunnel valley infill and genesis revealed by high-resolution 3-D seismic data

Geology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. Kirkham ◽  
Kelly A. Hogan ◽  
Robert D. Larter ◽  
Ed Self ◽  
Ken Games ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Seismic Data ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Ice Dynamics ◽  
The North ◽  
Warming Climate ◽  
Internal Structures ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Glacial Landforms

Landforms produced beneath former ice sheets offer insights into inaccessible subglacial processes and present analogues for how current ice masses may evolve in a warming climate. Large subglacial channels cut by meltwater erosion (tunnel valleys [TVs]) have the potential to provide valuable empirical constraints for numerical ice-sheet models concerning realistic melt rates, water routing, and the interplay between basal hydrology and ice dynamics. However, the information gleaned from these features has thus far been limited by an inability to adequately resolve their internal structures. We use high-resolution three-dimensional (HR3-D) seismic data (6.25 m bin size, ~4 m vertical resolution) to analyze the infill of buried TVs in the North Sea. The HR3-D seismic data represent a step-change in our ability to investigate the mechanisms and rates at which TVs are formed and filled. Over 40% of the TVs examined contain buried glacial landforms including eskers, crevasse-squeeze ridges, glacitectonic structures, and kettle holes. As most of these landforms had not previously been detected using conventional 3-D seismic reflection methods, the mechanisms that formed them are currently absent from models of TV genesis. The ability to observe such intricate internal structures opens the possibility of using TVs to reconstruct the hydrological regimes of former mid-latitude ice sheets as analogues for contemporary ones.

Exploring mechanisms and rates of tunnel valley formation beneath deglaciating mid-latitude ice sheets using high-resolution 3D seismic data and numerical modelling

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Kirkham ◽  
Kelly Hogan ◽  
Robert Larter ◽  
Ed Self ◽  
Ken Games ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
North Sea ◽  
Seismic Data ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
3D Seismic ◽  
Ice Dynamics ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
State Water ◽  
3D Seismic Data

<p>The geological record of landforms produced beneath deglaciating ice sheets offers insights into otherwise inaccessible subglacial processes. Large subglacial channels formed by meltwater erosion of sediments (tunnel valleys) are widespread in formerly glaciated regions such as the North Sea. These features have the potential to inform basal melt rate parameterisations, realistic water routing and the interplay between basal hydrology and ice dynamics in numerical ice‑sheet models; however, the mechanisms and timescales over which tunnel valleys form remain poorly understood. Here, we present a series of modelling experiments, informed by geophysical observations from novel high-resolution 3D seismic data (6.25 m bin size, ~3.5 m vertical resolution), which test different hypotheses of tunnel valley formation and calculate the rates at which these features likely form beneath deglaciating ice sheets. Reconstructions of the former British-Irish and Fennoscandian ice sheets from a 3D thermomechanical ice‑sheet model (BRITICE CHRONO version 2) are used to calculate subglacial water routing and steady-state water discharges as these ice sheets retreated across the North Sea Basin during the last glaciation. Using these simulations, we calculate potential meltwater channel erosion rates and estimate how quickly tunnel  valleys are formed beneath deglaciating ice sheets in warmer than present-day climates. We find little evidence for widespread water ponding which may have led to channel formation through outburst floods. Instead, our results demonstrate that seasonal surface melt delivered to the bed could incise large channels of comparable dimensions to tunnel valleys over timescales of several hundred years as these ice sheets deglaciated.  </p>

Reconstruction of the Reservoir Fine Structure by Using Scattering Attributes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Cheverda ◽  
Vadim Lisitsa ◽  
Maksim Protasov ◽  
Galina Reshetova ◽  
Andrey Ledyaev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Seismic Data ◽  
Numerical Experiments ◽  
Seismic Waves ◽  
Fractured Reservoirs ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Geological Structure ◽  
Discrete Elements ◽  
Digital Twin ◽  
The North ◽  
Slip Surfaces

Abstract To develop the optimal strategy for developing a hydrocarbon field, one should know in fine detail its geological structure. More and more attention has been paid to cavernous-fractured reservoirs within the carbonate environment in the last decades. This article presents a technology for three-dimensional computing images of such reservoirs using scattered seismic waves. To verify it, we built a particular synthetic model, a digital twin of one of the licensed objects in the north of Eastern Siberia. One distinctive feature of this digital twin is the representation of faults not as some ideal slip surfaces but as three-dimensional geological bodies filled with tectonic breccias. To simulate such breccias and the geometry of these bodies, we performed a series of numerical experiments based on the discrete elements technique. The purpose of these experiments is the simulation of the geomechanical processes of fault formation. For the digital twin constructed, we performed full-scale 3D seismic modeling, which made it possible to conduct fully controlled numerical experiments on the construction of wave images and, on this basis, to propose an optimal seismic data processing graph.

8. Glaciers of the past

2018 ◽  
pp. 146-152
Author(s):  
David J. A. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Models ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Aerial Imagery ◽  
The Past ◽  
Glacial Landforms

To reconstruct the former extent and dynamics of ice sheets and glaciers requires a knowledge of process-form relationships that goes beyond individual landform types. Instead, glacial geomorphologists need to analyse large areas of glaciated terrain in a more holistic way, combining the whole range of glacial landforms and sediments to reconstruct glacier systems of the past, a subject now known as palaeoglaciology. ‘Glaciers of the past’ explains how the combination of aerial imagery and landform analysis is used in palaeoglaciological reconstruction. Increasingly powerful computers are making it possible to compile sophisticated numerical models that use our knowledge of glaciological processes and ice-core-derived palaeoclimate data to create three-dimensional glacier and ice sheet reconstructions.

Case Study of Broadband Multimeasurement Streamer and Multilevel Source Seismic Data from the North Sea

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.V. Zarkhidze ◽  
Y. Abbas ◽  
P.E. Dhelie ◽  
V. Danielsen ◽  
J.E. Lie
Keyword(s):  
North Sea ◽  
Seismic Data ◽  
The North ◽  
The North Sea

scholarly journals A three-dimensional calving model: numerical experiments on Johnsons Glacier, Livingston Island, Antarctica

2010 ◽  
Vol 56 (196) ◽  
pp. 200-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaime Otero ◽  
Francisco J. Navarro ◽  
Carlos Martin ◽  
Maria L. Cuadrado ◽  
Maria I. Corcuera
Keyword(s):  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Prognostic Models ◽  
Current Position ◽  
Polar Ice ◽  
Ice Dynamics ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
Tidewater Glaciers ◽  
Livingston Island ◽  
Polar Ice Sheets

AbstractCalving from tidewater glaciers and ice shelves accounts for around half the mass loss from both polar ice sheets, yet the process is not well represented in prognostic models of ice dynamics. Benn and others proposed a calving criterion appropriate for both grounded and floating glacier tongues or ice shelves, based on the penetration depth of transverse crevasses near the calving front, computed using Nye’s formula. The criterion is readily incorporated into glacier and ice-sheet models, but has not been fully validated with observations. We apply a three-dimensional extension of Benn and others’ criterion, incorporated into a full-Stokes model of glacier dynamics, to estimate the current position of the calving front of Johnsons Glacier, Antarctica. We find that two improvements to the original model are necessary to accurately reproduce the observed calving front: (1) computation of the tensile deviatoric stress opening the crevasse using the full-stress solution and (2) consideration of such a tensile stress as a function of depth. Our modelling results also suggest that Johnsons Glacier has a polythermal structure, rather than the temperate structure suggested by earlier studies.

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