Flow and Fracture Dynamics in an Ice Shelf Lateral Margin: Observations and modeling of the McMurdo Shear Zone
The overall goal of this project is to understand the role of lateral shearing on the flow and stability of ice shelves. Work focuses on the McMurdo Shear Zone (SZ), a narrow but intensely crevassed feature separating the Ross and McMurdo ice shelves (RIS and MIS) in West Antarctica. Previous work h...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Dataset |
| Language: | unknown |
| Published: |
International Federation of Digital Seismograph Networks
2016
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.7914/sn/yp_2016 https://www.fdsn.org/networks/detail/YP_2016/ |
| Summary: | The overall goal of this project is to understand the role of lateral shearing on the flow and stability of ice shelves. Work focuses on the McMurdo Shear Zone (SZ), a narrow but intensely crevassed feature separating the Ross and McMurdo ice shelves (RIS and MIS) in West Antarctica. Previous work has shown that internal crevasses do not conform to the expected pattern of surface deformation and might be an indication of possible unstable flow. The initial part of our collaborative project is to collect high-resolution field observations of crevasse distributions and architectures using robotic ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys and the corresponding deformation field from repeat GPS surveys. Additional seismic observations will inform on ice properties of englacial ice as well as observed basal freeze-on ice. These data will be used to map velocity, strain, and ice damage along the shear zone margins and to construct a three-dimensional finite element, time-dependent model of the SZ with emphasis on RIS stability. |
|---|