Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Wannamaker, Phil
• Hill, Graham
• Stodt, John
• Maris, Virginie
• Ogawa, Yasuo
• Selway, Kate
• Boren, Goran
• Bertrand, Edward
• Uhlmann, Daniel
• Ayling, Bridget
• Green, A Marie
• Feucht, Daniel

Titel

Uplift of the central transantarctic mountains

Ist Teil von

• Nature communications, 2017-11, Vol.8 (1), p.1588-11, Article 1588

Ort / Verlag

England: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) are the world's longest rift shoulder but the source of their high elevation is enigmatic. To discriminate the importance of mechanical vs. thermal sources of support, a 550 km-long transect of magnetotelluric geophysical soundings spanning the central TAM was acquired. These data reveal a lithosphere of high electrical resistivity to at least 150 km depth, implying a cold stable state well into the upper mantle. Here we find that the central TAM most likely are elevated by a non-thermal, flexural cantilever mechanism which is perhaps the most clearly expressed example anywhere. West Antarctica in this region exhibits a low resistivity, moderately hydrated asthenosphere, and concentrated extension (rift necking) near the central TAM range front but with negligible thermal encroachment into the TAM. Broader scale heat flow of east-central West Antarctica appears moderate, on the order of 60-70 mW m , lower than that of the U.S. Great Basin.