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Volcanology

Mobile magma under Antarctic ice

Nature Geoscience volume 6, pages 990–991 (2013)Cite this article

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Volcanoes have been active under the West Antarctic Ice Sheet for millions of years, and there is evidence for recent activity. Now swarms of tiny earthquakes detected in 2010 and 2011 hint at current magma movement in the crust beneath the ice.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass as the climate warms and the surrounding floating ice shelves that buttress the land-based ice are eaten away at their base by warmer ocean waters1. However, the ice can also melt from below on land, where subglacial volcanic activity causes a high flow of heat through the crust2,3,4,5. Writing in Nature Geoscience, Lough et al.6 use observations of hundreds of small seismic events in the crust beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to infer current magma movement in a volcanic system beneath the ice, which may bring heat up to the rock–ice interface and thus affect ice flow.

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Figure 1: Rocks outcropping above glaciers in Marie Byrd Land.

© NG IMAGES / ALAMY

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  1. John C. Behrendt is at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado and USGS, Denver 80225, USA,

    John C. Behrendt

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  1. John C. Behrendt
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Correspondence to John C. Behrendt.

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Behrendt, J. Mobile magma under Antarctic ice. Nature Geosci 6, 990–991 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2011

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