Approaches to constraining East Antarctic rheology using seismic measurements from isolated stations

• Main Authors: Askey-Doran, N., Turner, R., Stål, T., Reading, A.
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Antarctic; East Antarctic Ice Sheet; East Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5016706

It is becoming apparent that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet may be more vulnerable to changing climate than previously thought. Tomographic studies have revealed significant lateral variations in mantle viscosity across Antarctica, which can strongly influence the results of glacial isostatic adjustment models. Glacial isostatic adjustment is an important consideration in sea-level and ice-sheet studies, necessitating improved constraints on rheology in East Antarctica. Detailed studies of 3D rheology in East Antarctica are challenging due to the sparsity of seismic stations across this region. Stochastic Bayesian approaches to inversion naturally provide information on uncertainties and can be a powerful technique when data is sparse. The utility of such approaches has been demonstrated by the recent results of the Mars InSight mission, in which ensemble model approaches were used to invert for the seismic structure of Mars using recordings from a single seismic station. We employ stochastic Bayesian approaches recently used on Mars to constrain the rheology of the lithosphere and asthenosphere in East Antarctica. These techniques will be used to develop new methodologies that can be used on data recorded at isolated stations to constrain possible bounds for rheology on a regional scale. In future work, seismic measurements may be used in combination with other techniques such as magnetotelluric measurements to provide additional constraints on solid Earth rheology.