scholarly journals The Seismic Structure of the Antarctic Upper Mantle

2021 ◽  
pp. M56-2020-18
Author(s):  
Douglas A. Wiens ◽  
Weisen Shen ◽  
Andrew Lloyd

AbstractThe deployment of seismic stations and the development of ambient noise tomography and new analysis methods provide an opportunity for higher resolution imaging of Antarctica. Here we review recent seismic structure models and describe their implications for the dynamics and history of the Antarctic upper mantle. Results show that most of East Antarctica is underlain by continental lithosphere to depths of ∼ 200 km. The thickest lithosphere is found in a band 500-1000 km west of the Transantarctic Mountains, representing the continuation of cratonic lithosphere with Australian affinity beneath the ice. Dronning Maud Land and the Lambert Graben show much thinner lithosphere, consistent with Phanerozoic lithospheric disruption. The Transantarctic Mountains mark a sharp boundary between cratonic lithosphere and the warmer upper mantle of West Antarctica. In the Southern Transantarctic Mountains, cratonic lithosphere has been replaced by warm asthenosphere, giving rise to Cenozoic volcanism and an elevated mountainous region. The Marie Byrd Land volcanic dome is underlain by slow seismic velocities extending through the transition zone, consistent with a mantle plume. Slow velocity anomalies beneath the coast from the Amundsen Sea Embayment to the Antarctic Peninsula likely result from upwelling of warm asthenosphere during subduction of the Antarctic-Phoenix spreading center.

Author(s):  
A. J. Lloyd ◽  
D. A. Wiens ◽  
H. Zhu ◽  
J. Tromp ◽  
A. A. Nyblade ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Wilde−Piórko

Abstract Receiver function provides the signature of sharp seismic discontinuities and the information about the shear wave (S−wave) velocity distribution beneath the seismic station. This information is very valuable in areas where any or few reflection and/or refraction studies are available and global and/or regional models give only rough information about the seismic velocities. The data recorded by broadband seismic stations have been analysed to investigate the crustal and upper mantle structure of the Svalbard Archipelago. Svalbard Archipelago is a group of islands located in Arctic, at the north−western part of the Barents Sea continental platform, which is bordered to the west and to the north by passive continental margins. The new procedure of parameterization and selection of receiver functions (RFs) has been proposed. The back−azimuthal sections of RF show a strong variation for the HSPB and KBS stations. Significant amplitudes of transversal component of RF (T−RF) for the HSPB station indicate a shallow dipping layer towards the southwest. The structure of the crust beneath the SPITS array seems to be less heterogeneous, with very low amplitudes of converted phase comparing to the KBS and HSPB stations. Forward modelling by trial−and−error method shows a division of the crust into 3-4 layers beneath all stations and layering of the uppermost mantle beneath the SPITS array and the HSPB stations. The thickness of the mantle transition zone is larger for western part of archipelago and smaller for eastern part comparing to iasp91 model.


Author(s):  
Kirsten T. Wenzel ◽  
Michael Wiedenbeck ◽  
Jürgen Gose ◽  
Alexander Rocholl ◽  
Esther Schmädicke

AbstractThis study presents new secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) reference materials (RMs) for measuring water contents in nominally anhydrous orthopyroxenes from upper mantle peridotites. The enstatitic reference orthopyroxenes from spinel peridotite xenoliths have Mg#s between 0.83 and 0.86, Al2O3 ranges between 4.02 and 5.56 wt%, and Cr2O3 ranges between 0.21 and 0.69 wt%. Based on Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) characterizations, the water contents of the eleven reference orthopyroxenes vary from dry to 249 ± 6 µg/g H2O. Using these reference grains, a set of orthopyroxene samples obtained from variably altered abyssal spinel peridotites from the Atlantic and Arctic Ridges as well as from the Izu-Bonin-Mariana forearc region was analyzed by SIMS and FTIR regarding their incorporation of water. The major element composition of the sample orthopyroxenes is typical of spinel peridotites from the upper mantle, characterized by Mg#s between 0.90 and 0.92, Al2O3 between 1.66 and 5.34 wt%, and Cr2O3 between 0.62 and 0.96 wt%. Water contents as measured by SIMS range from 68 ± 7 to 261 ± 11 µg/g H2O and correlate well with Al2O3 contents (r = 0.80) and Cr#s (r. = -0.89). We also describe in detail an optimized strategy, employing both SIMS and FTIR, for quantifying structural water in highly altered samples such as abyssal peridotite. This approach first analyzes individual oriented grains by polarized FTIR, which provides an overview of alteration. Subsequently, the same grain along with others of the same sample is measured using SIMS, thereby gaining information about homogeneity at the hand sample scale, which is key for understanding the geological history of these rocks.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunchun Gao ◽  
Yang Lu ◽  
Zizhan Zhang ◽  
Hongling Shi

Many recent mass balance estimates using the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and satellite altimetry (including two kinds of sensors of radar and laser) show that the ice mass of the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) is in overall decline. However, there are still large differences among previously published estimates of the total mass change, even in the same observed periods. The considerable error sources mainly arise from the forward models (e.g., glacial isostatic adjustment [GIA] and firn compaction) that may be uncertain but indispensable to simulate some processes not directly measured or obtained by these observations. To minimize the use of these forward models, we estimate the mass change of ice sheet and present-day GIA using multi-geodetic observations, including GRACE and Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), as well as Global Positioning System (GPS), by an improved method of joint inversion estimate (JIE), which enables us to solve simultaneously for the Antarctic GIA and ice mass trends. The GIA uplift rates generated from our JIE method show a good agreement with the elastic-corrected GPS uplift rates, and the total GIA-induced mass change estimate for the AIS is 54 ± 27 Gt/yr, which is in line with many recent GPS calibrated GIA estimates. Our GIA result displays the presence of significant uplift rates in the Amundsen Sea Embayment of West Antarctica, where strong uplift has been observed by GPS. Over the period February 2003 to October 2009, the entire AIS changed in mass by −84 ± 31 Gt/yr (West Antarctica: −69 ± 24, East Antarctica: 12 ± 16 and the Antarctic Peninsula: −27 ± 8), greater than the GRACE-only estimates obtained from three Mascon solutions (CSR: −50 ± 30, JPL: −71 ± 30, and GSFC: −51 ± 33 Gt/yr) for the same period. This may imply that single GRACE data tend to underestimate ice mass loss due to the signal leakage and attenuation errors of ice discharge are often worse than that of surface mass balance over the AIS.


2015 ◽  
Vol 201 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hejun Zhu ◽  
Ebru Bozdağ ◽  
Jeroen Tromp

Polar Record ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 210-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Stephen Dibbern

ABSTRACTDeception Island in the South Shetland Islands was the site of some of the earliest commercial activity to be carried out in the Antarctic with the early 19th century hunting of Antarctic fur seals. Nearly a century later it was the site of the most extensive anchorage for the reconstructed ships and ocean liners used as non-pelagic whale processing factories. Deception was also the site of what is the only successful land based commercial activity in Antarctic history. The Hektor whaling station operated in Whalers Bay from 1912 until 1931. Most of the remains of the station have now been obliterated by the volcanic activity that occurred in the late 1960s and 1970. By the later part of the twentieth century Deception Island had become a regular stop for the growing Antarctic tourist cruise industry. No other place in Antarctica has been so thoroughly identified with commercial activity.


1975 ◽  
Vol 65 (6) ◽  
pp. 1787-1796
Author(s):  
Mansur A. Choudhury ◽  
Georges Poupinet ◽  
Guy Perrier

abstract Behavior of P, S and ScS residuals as well as those of differential travel times of ScS-P from the Jeffreys-Bullen tables are analyzed. The phases have been read from short-period records of the Antarctic station, Dumont d'Urville (DRV); the earthquakes originating in New Hebrides, Fiji-Tonga, and Banda Sea regions. P residuals from all regions show a mean value of about −1 sec. On the contrary, S and ScS residuals, well correlated among themselves, show important regional as well as focal-depth dependence. ScS-P residuals from shallow and intermediate shocks are largely positive for New Hebrides and largely negative for Banda Sea; those from intermediate shocks are moderately positive for Fiji-Tonga. The anomalies disappear at depths greater than about 200 km. Upper mantle shear velocity models are presented for the three regions. The models are discussed in relation to a sinking lithosphere.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Scott A. Reynhout ◽  
Michael R. Kaplan ◽  
Esteban A. Sagredo ◽  
Juan Carlos Aravena ◽  
Rodrigo L. Soteres ◽  
...  

Abstract In the Cordillera Darwin, southernmost South America, we used 10Be and 14C dating, dendrochronology, and historical observations to reconstruct the glacial history of the Dalla Vedova valley from deglacial time to the present. After deglacial recession into northeastern Darwin and Dalla Vedova, by ~16 ka, evidence indicates a glacial advance at ~13 ka coeval with the Antarctic Cold Reversal. The next robustly dated glacial expansion occurred at 870 ± 60 calendar yr ago (approximately AD 1150), followed by less-extensive dendrochronologically constrained advances from shortly before AD 1836 to the mid-twentieth century. Our record is consistent with most studies within the Cordillera Darwin that show that the Holocene glacial maximum occurred during the last millennium. This pattern contrasts with the extensive early- and mid-Holocene glacier expansions farther north in Patagonia; furthermore, an advance at 870 ± 60 yr ago may suggest out-of-phase glacial advances occurred within the Cordillera Darwin relative to Patagonia. We speculate that a southward shift of westerlies and associated climate regimes toward the southernmost tip of the continent, about 900–800 yr ago, provides a mechanism by which some glaciers advanced in the Cordillera Darwin during what is generally considered a warm and dry period to the north in Patagonia.


2006 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse F. Lawrence ◽  
Douglas A. Wiens ◽  
Andrew A. Nyblade ◽  
Sridhar Anandakrishan ◽  
Patrick J. Shore ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Suze Nei Pereira Guimarães ◽  
Fábio Pinto Vieira ◽  
Valiya Mannathal Hamza

The present work provides a reappraisal of terrestrial heat flow variations in the Antarctic continent, based on recent advances in data analysis and regional assessments. The data considered include those reported at the website of IHFC and 78 additional sites where measurements have been made using a variety of techniques. These include values based on the Method of Magmatic Heat Budget (MHB) for 41 localities in areas of recent volcanic activity and estimates that rely on basal temperatures of glaciers in 372 localities that are known to host subglacial lakes. The total number of data assembled is 491, which has been useful in deriving a 10°x10° grid system of homogenized heat flow values and in deriving a new heat flow map of the Antarctic continent. The results reveal that the Antarctic Peninsula and western segment of the Antarctic continent has distinctly high heat flow relative to the eastern regions. The general pattern of differences in heat flow between eastern and western of Antarctic continent is in striking agreement with results based on seismic velocities.


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