Calibrated Seismic Imaging of Eddy-Dominated Warm-Water Transport across the Bellingshausen Sea, Southern Ocean ...

Seismic reflection images of thermohaline circulation from the Bellingshausen Sea, adjacent to the West Antarctica Peninsula, were acquired during February 2015. This survey shows that bright reflectivity occurs throughout the upper 300 m. By calibrating these seismic images with coeval hydrographic...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gunn, Kathryn, White, NJ, Larter, RD, Caulfield, Colm-Cille Patrick
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.22086
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/275156
Description
Summary:Seismic reflection images of thermohaline circulation from the Bellingshausen Sea, adjacent to the West Antarctica Peninsula, were acquired during February 2015. This survey shows that bright reflectivity occurs throughout the upper 300 m. By calibrating these seismic images with coeval hydrographic measurements, intrusion of warm-water features onto the continental shelf at Marguerite and Belgica Troughs is identified and characterized. These features have distinctive lens-shaped patterns of reflectivity with lengths of 0.75--11.00 km and thicknesses of 100--150 m, suggesting that they are small mesoscale to sub-mesoscale eddies. Abundant eddies are observed along a transect that crosses Belgica Trough. Near Alexander Island drift, a large, $O(10^{2})$ km$^3$, bowl-like feature, that may represent an anticyclonic Taylor column, is imaged on a pair of orthogonal images. A modified iterative procedure is used to convert seismic imagery into maps of temperature that enable the number and size of eddies being ...