Evidence of an active volcanic heat source beneath the Pine Island Glacier

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Loose, Brice, Naveira Garabato, Alberto C., Schlosser, Peter, Jenkins, William J., Vaughan, David, Heywood, Karen J.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group 2018
• Subjects: Antarctic; Pine Island Glacier; West Antarctic Ice Sheet; Antarc*; glacier; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf; Iceland
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/10453

© The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Nature Communications 9 (2018): 2431, doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04421-3. Tectonic landforms reveal that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) lies atop a major volcanic rift system. However, identifying subglacial volcanism is challenging. Here we show geochemical evidence of a volcanic heat source upstream of the fast-melting Pine Island Ice Shelf, documented by seawater helium isotope ratios at the front of the Ice Shelf cavity. The localization of mantle helium to glacial meltwater reveals that volcanic heat induces melt beneath the grounded glacier and feeds the subglacial hydrological network crossing the grounding line. The observed transport of mantle helium out of the Ice Shelf cavity indicates that volcanic heat is supplied to the grounded glacier at a rate of ~ 2500 ± 1700 MW, which is ca. half as large as the active Grimsvötn volcano on Iceland. Our finding of a substantial volcanic heat source beneath a major WAIS glacier highlights the need to understand subglacial volcanism, its hydrologic interaction with the marine margins, and its potential role in the future stability of the WAIS. This research was supported by the NSF Antarctic program through Award #1341630.