7P (2025-2027): Seismic Survey of the Fimbul Ice Shelf

• Baylor University

Antarctica plays a crucial role in the maintenance of a stable global environment and sea level. Three-quarters of Antarctica’s coastline comprises ice shelves fed from glaciers flowing outwards into the ocean. Ice shelves reach hundreds of meters below the sea surface and act as a safety band buttressing unrestrained ice discharge of the continental Antarctic ice sheet. With the clearly documented dramatic retreat of sea ice in the Arctic, there is mounting concern that global warming has begun adversely affecting Antarctica as well. Owing to the complexity of the Antarctic cryosphere and the intimately linked shelf ice dynamics, it is, however, difficult to predict how quickly such an irreversible and escalating trend will unfold. To advance understanding of the large variety of complex ice shelf failure mechanisms and their interrelation which is currently largely unknown, we intend to perform a seismic survey data of the Fimbul Ice Shelf to produce important constraints for numerical modeling with respect to parameterization of mechanical and physical material properties as well as ice shelf basal topography and ocean bed bathymetry. . This survey will constitute one component of a project funded by the South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP), a program of South Africa’s National Research Foundation (NRF), that seeks to clarify the structural glaciology of the Fimbulisen, located in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. Our seismic survey will complement extensive GNSS, Synthetic Aperture Rader, airborne and ground-penetrating radar, and phase-sensitive radar (ApRES) data for purposes of a modeling effort overseen by Dr. Sebastian Skatulla (Univ. of Cape Town), who is the principal investigator of this multi-institutional and multi-national research project.

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