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Uplift and tilting of the Shackleton Range in East Antarctica driven by glacial erosion and normal faulting

Paxman, G.J.G.; Jamieson, S.S.R.; Ferraccioli, F.; Bentley, M.J.; Forsberg, R.; Ross, N.; Watts, A.B.; Corr, H.F.J.; Jordan, T.A.

Uplift and tilting of the Shackleton Range in East Antarctica driven by glacial erosion and normal faulting Thumbnail


Authors

F. Ferraccioli

R. Forsberg

N. Ross

A.B. Watts

H.F.J. Corr

T.A. Jordan



Abstract

Unravelling the long-term evolution of the subglacial landscape of Antarctica is vital for understanding past ice sheet dynamics and stability, particularly in marine-based sectors of the ice sheet. Here, we model the evolution of the bedrock topography beneath the Recovery catchment, a sector of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet characterized by fast-flowing ice streams that occupy overdeepened subglacial troughs. We use 3D flexural models to quantify the effect of erosional unloading and mechanical unloading associated with motion on border faults in driving isostatic bedrock uplift of the Shackleton Range and Theron Mountains, which are flanked by the Recovery, Slessor and Bailey ice streams. Inverse spectral (free-air admittance) and forward modeling of topography and gravity anomaly data allow us to constrain the effective elastic thickness of the lithosphere (Te) in the Shackleton Range region to ~20 km. Our models indicate that glacial erosion, and the associated isostatic rebound, has driven 40–50% of total peak uplift in the Shackleton Range and Theron Mountains. A further 40–50% can be attributed to motion on normal fault systems of inferred Jurassic and Cretaceous age. Our results indicate that the flexural effects of glacial erosion play a key role in mountain uplift along the East Antarctic margin, augmenting previous findings in the Transantarctic Mountains. The results suggest that at 34 Ma, the mountains were lower and the bounding valley floors were close to sea-level, which implies that the early ice sheet in this region may have been relatively stable.

Citation

Paxman, G., Jamieson, S., Ferraccioli, F., Bentley, M., Forsberg, R., Ross, N., …Jordan, T. (2017). Uplift and tilting of the Shackleton Range in East Antarctica driven by glacial erosion and normal faulting. Journal of Geophysical Research. Solid Earth, 122(3), 2390-2408. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016jb013841

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Feb 22, 2017
Online Publication Date Mar 15, 2017
Publication Date Mar 15, 2017
Deposit Date Dec 7, 2016
Publicly Available Date Feb 28, 2017
Journal Journal of Geophysical Research. Solid Earth
Print ISSN 2169-9313
Electronic ISSN 2169-9356
Publisher American Geophysical Union
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 122
Issue 3
Pages 2390-2408
DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/2016jb013841

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Accepted Journal Article (2.9 Mb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© 2017. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.







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