Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Seismic detection of an active subglacial magmatic complex in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica

Nature Geoscience volume 6, pages 1031–1035 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Numerous volcanoes exist in Marie Byrd Land, a highland region of West Antarctica. High heat flow through the crust in this region may influence the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet1,2,3,4. Volcanic activity progressed from north to south in the Executive Committee mountain range between the Miocene and Holocene epochs, but there has been no evidence for recent magmatic activity5,6,7. Here we use a recently deployed seismic network to show that in 2010 and 2011, two swarms of seismic activity occurred at 25–40 km depth beneath subglacial topographic and magnetic highs, located 55 km south of the youngest subaerial volcano in the Executive Committee Range. We interpret the swarm events as deep long-period earthquakes based on their unusual frequency content. Such earthquakes occur beneath active volcanoes, are caused by deep magmatic activity and, in some cases, precede eruptions8,9,10,11. We also use radar profiles to identify a prominent ash layer in the ice overlying the seismic swarm. Located at 1,400 m depth, the ash layer is about 8,000 years old and was probably sourced from the nearby Mount Waesche volcano. Together, these observations provide strong evidence for ongoing magmatic activity and demonstrate that volcanism continues to migrate southwards along the Executive Committee Range. Eruptions at this site are unlikely to penetrate the 1.2 to 2-km-thick overlying ice, but would generate large volumes of melt water that could significantly affect ice stream flow.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Summary of ECR volcanic and seismic activity.
Figure 2: Comparison of spectral character of DLP and non-DLP events.
Figure 3: Radar data showing ice thickness and ash layer.

References

  1. Paulsen, T. S. & Wilson, T. J. Evolution of Neogene volcanism and stress patterns in the glaciated West Antarctic Rift, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. J. Geol. Soc. Lond. 167, 401–416 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. LeMasurier, W. E. & Thomson, J. W. (eds) in Volcanoes of the Antarctic Plate and Southern Oceans (American Geophysical Union, 1990).

  3. Blankenship, D. D. et al. Active volcanism beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet and implications for ice-sheet stability. Nature 361, 526–529 (1993).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Fretwell, P. et al. Bedmap2: Improved ice bed, surface and thickness datasets for Antarctica. Cryosphere Discuss. 6, 4305–4361 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Corr, H. F. & Vaughan, D. G. A recent volcanic eruption beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet. Nature Geosci. 1, 122–125 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Behrendt, J. C. The aeromagnetic method as a tool to identify Cenozoic magmatism in the West Antarctic Rift System beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet — A review; Thiel subglacial volcano as possible source of the ash layer in the WAISCORE. Tectonophysics 585, 124–136 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Vogel, S. W. et al. Geological constraints on the existence and distribution of West Antarctic subglacial volcanism. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L23501 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Nichols, M. L., Malone, S. D., Moran, S. C., Thelen, W. A. & Vidale, J. E. Deep long-period earthquakes beneath Washington and Oregon volcanoes. J. Volcanol. Geotherm. Res. 200, 116–128 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Okubo, P. G. & Wolfe, C. J. Swarms of similar long-period earthquakes in the mantle beneath Mauna Loa Volcano. J. Volcanol. Geophys. Res. 178, 787–794 (2008).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Power, J. A., Stihler, S. D., White, R. A. & Moran, S. C. Observations of deep long-period (DLP) seismic events beneath Aleutian arc volcanoes; 1989–2002. J. Volcanol. Geotherm. Res. 138, 243–266 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. White, R. A. in Fire and Mud: Eruptions and Lahars of Mount Pinatubo, Phillipines (eds Newhall, C. G. & Punongbayan, R. S.) 307–328 (Univ. of Washington Press, 1996).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Winberry, J. P. & Anandakrishnan, S. Seismicity and neotectonics of West Antarctica. Geophys. Res. Lett. 30, 18,1931 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. McNutt, S. R. Monitoring and Mitigation of Volcano Hazards 99–146 (Springer, 1996).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  14. Jakobsdóttir, S. S. et al. Earthquake swarms at Upptyppingar, north-east Iceland: A sign of magma intrusion? Stud. Geophys. et Geodaet. 52, 513–528 (2008).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Kennett, B. L. N., Engdahl, E. R. & Buland, R. Constraints on seismic velocities in the Earth from traveltimes. Geophys. J. Int. 122, 108–124 (1995).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Chaput, J. et al. Crustal thickness across West Antarctica. J. Geophys. Res. (in review, 2013).

  17. Abercrombie, R. E. Earthquake scaling relationships from −1 to 5M L using seismograms recorded at 2.5-km depth. J. Geophys. Res. 100, 24015–24036 (1995).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Zoet, L. K., Anandakrishnan, S., Alley, R. B., Nyblade, A. A. & Wiens, D. A. Motion of an Antarctic glacier by repeated tidally modulated earthquakes. Nature Geosci. 5, 623–626 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Holt, J. W. et al. New boundary conditions for the West Antarctic ice sheet: Subglacial topography of the Thwaites and Smith Glacier catchments. Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L09502 (2006).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Gripp, A. E. & Gordon, R. G. Young tracks of hotspots and current plate velocities. Geophys. J. Int. 150, 321–361 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Lenaerts, J. T. M. & Van den Broeke, M. R. Modelling drifting snow in Antarctica with a regional climate model: 2. results. J. Geophys. Res. 117, D05108 (2012).

    Google Scholar 

  22. Van de Berg, W., Van de Broeke, M., Reijmer, C. & Van Meijgaard, E. Characteristics of the Antarctic surface mass balance, 1958–2002, using a regional atmospheric climate model. Ann. Glaciol. 41, 97–104 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Ackert, J. et al. Measurements of past ice sheet elevations in interior West Antarctica. Science 286, 276–280 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Dunbar, N. W., Zielinski, G. A. & Voisins, D. T. Tephra layers in the Siple Dome and Taylor Dome ice cores, Antarctica: Sources and correlations. J. Geophys. Res. 108, 2374 (2003).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Blong, R. J. Volcanic Hazards A Sourcebook on the Effects of Eruptions (Academic, 1984).

    Google Scholar 

  26. Joughin, I., Tulaczyk, S., MacAyeal, D. R. & Engelhardt, H. Melting and freezing beneath the Ross ice streams, Antarctica. J. Glaciol. 50, 96–108 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Young, D. A. et al. A dynamic early East Antarctic Ice Sheet suggested by ice-covered fjord landscapes. Nature 474, 72–75 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Peters, M. E. et al. Along-track focusing of airborne radar sounding data from West Antarctica for improving basal reflection analysis and layer detection. Geosci. Remote Sensing, IEEE Trans. 45, 2725–2736 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Jordan, T. H. & Sverdrup, K. A Teleseismic location techniques and their application to earthquake clusters in the south-central Pacific. Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am. 71, 1105–1130 (1981).

    Google Scholar 

  30. Scambos, T., Haran, T., Fahnestock, M., Painter, T. & Bohlander, J. MODIS-based Mosaic of Antarctica (MOA) data sets: Continent-wide surface morphology and snow grain size. Remote Sens. Environ. 111, 242–257 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

POLENET-Antarctica is supported by NSF Office of Polar Programs grant numbers 0632230, 0632239, 0652322, 0632335, 0632136, 0632209 and 0632185. GIMBLE is supported by NSF grant 1043761. Seismic instrumentation provided and supported by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) through the PASSCAL Instrument Center at New Mexico Tech. Seismic data are available through the IRIS Data Management Center. The facilities of the IRIS Consortium are supported by the NSF under Cooperative Agreement EAR-1063471, the NSF Office of Polar Programs and the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration. This is UTIG contribution 2589.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri 63130, USA

    Amanda C. Lough, Douglas A. Wiens & C. Grace Barcheck

  2. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA

    C. Grace Barcheck

  3. Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

    Sridhar Anandakrishnan & Andrew Nyblade

  4. Department of Earth and Environmental Science, New Mexico Tech, Socorro, New Mexico 87801, USA

    Richard C. Aster

  5. Geosciences Department, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA

    Richard C. Aster

  6. Institute for Geophysics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78759, USA

    Donald D. Blankenship & Duncan A. Young

  7. Department of Geological Science, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington 98926, USA

    Audrey D. Huerta

  8. Department of Geological Sciences, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA

    Terry J. Wilson

Authors
  1. Amanda C. Lough
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Douglas A. Wiens
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. C. Grace Barcheck
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Sridhar Anandakrishnan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Richard C. Aster
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Donald D. Blankenship
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Audrey D. Huerta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Andrew Nyblade
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Duncan A. Young
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Terry J. Wilson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

A.C.L. carried out initial locations and relative relocations on all DLP events used and carried out statistical and spectral analysis on DLP events. C.G.B. reviewed automatic detection locations and located all non-DLP events. R.C.A. carried out waveform cross-correlations. D.A.Y. and D.D.B. reviewed all radar and magnetics data and provided radar profiles shown in the figures. All authors contributed comments to the interpretation of results and preparation of the final paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amanda C. Lough.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information (PDF 1574 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lough, A., Wiens, D., Grace Barcheck, C. et al. Seismic detection of an active subglacial magmatic complex in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. Nature Geosci 6, 1031–1035 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1992

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1992

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing