This award supports an aerogeophysical study of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains (GSM), a Texas-sized mountain range buried beneath the ice sheets of East Antarctica. The project would perform a combined gravity, magnetics, and radar study to achieve a range of goals including: advancing our understanding of the origin and evolution of the polar ice sheets and subglacial lakes; defining the crustal architecture of East Antarctica, a key question in the earth's history; and locating the oldest ice in East Antarctica, which may ultimately help find ancient climate records. Virtually unexplored, the GSM represents the largest unstudied area of crustal uplift on earth. As well, the region is the starting point for growth of the Antarctic ice sheets. Because of these outstanding questions, the GSM has been identified by the international Antarctic science community as a research focus for the International Polar Year (2007-2009). In addition to this study, NSF is also supporting a seismological survey of the GSM under award number 0537371. Major international partners in the project include Germany, China, Australia, and the United Kingdom. For more information see IPY Project #67 at IPY.org. In terms of broader impacts, this project also supports postdoctoral and graduate student research, and various forms of outreach including a focus on groups underrepresented in the earth sciences.
Insights from Antarctica's Gamburtsev Province The interior of East Antarctica has remained one of the most inaccessible and difficult places to study on our planet. As part of the International Polar Year 2008-9, scientists from seven nations (United States, Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom, China, Canada and Japan) teamed up to systematically explore the Dome A and Gamburtsev Mountain region. The project launched a combined gravity, magnetics, laser and radar study to achieve a range of goals, including: advancing our understanding of the origin and evolution of the polar ice sheets and subglacial lakes; defining the crustal architecture of East Antarctica, a key question in the earth's history; and locating the oldest ice in East Antarctica, which may help find ancient climate records. Virtually unexplored, the GSM represents the largest unstudied area of crustal uplift on earth. The summit of the Gambiurtsev Mountains is where the Antarctic ice sheets first began to grow over 35 million years ago. . The multinational team used two instrumented Twin Otters to collect over 120,000 line kilometers of data over the tip of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The result is the first comprehensive data set of the Gamburtsev Mountains and Dome Argus (Dome A). The data includes: Ice Penetrating Radar, High Resolution Gravity Data and Aeromagnetics and Laser Altimetry are serving multiple open data centers. Major Discoveries Emerging from This Program include: Water runs uphill in the Gamburtsev Valleys (see Image 1) (Water in the Gamburtsev Mountain Valleys, Wolovick et al, JGR, 2013) Water from the valleys refreezes to the base of the Ice Sheet (see Image 2). Large unites of ice form along high peaks where water networks end, ice sheet thickens up to 1000m (Bell et al, Science, 2014) This refreezing preserves typography of the mountain range (see Image 3) (Creyts et al, GRL, 2014) Even though Gamburtsev Mountains are 100’s of millions years old, these subglacial peaks resemble much younger mountain ranges Gamburtsevs surrounded by rift valleys - (see Image 4) Gamburtsev Mountains formed through a complex multi-phase process, including a rift system that surrounds the High Peaks (Ferraccioli et al, Nature, 2014) The data collected through this project supported the development of the first prediction model for detecting wind-scour zones in East Antarctica (see Image 5) (Influence of persistent wind-scour on the surface mass balance of Antarctica, Das et al, Nature, 2013)
