Evidence for elevated and spatially variable geothermal flux beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Schroeder, Dustin M., Blankenship, Donald D., Young, Duncan A., Quartini, Enrica
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences 2014
• Subjects: Physical Sciences; Antarctic; Thwaites Glacier; West Antarctic Ice Sheet; Antarc*; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078843; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24927578; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1405184111

Thwaites Glacier is one of the West Antarctica's most prominent, rapidly evolving, and potentially unstable contributors to global sea level rise. Uncertainty in the amount and spatial pattern of geothermal flux and melting beneath this glacier is a major limitation in predicting its future behavior and sea level contribution. In this paper, a combination of radar sounding and subglacial water routing is used to show that large areas at the base of Thwaites Glacier are actively melting in response to geothermal flux consistent with rift-associated magma migration and volcanism. This supports the hypothesis that heterogeneous geothermal flux and local magmatic processes could be critical factors in determining the future behavior of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.