Anomalously High Heat Flow Regions Beneath the Transantarctic Mountains and Wilkes Subglacial Basin in East Antarctica Inferred From Curie Depth
Plain Language Summary
The Transantarctic Mountains are one of the longest mountain ranges on Earth, separating the geologically younger West Antarctica from the ancient East Antarctic craton. Scientists have long debated what holds these mountains up — whether it is the buoyancy of thick crustal roots or heat rising from deeper in the Earth. This study uses magnetic data collected from aircraft to estimate the Curie depth — the depth at which rocks become too hot for magnetic minerals to retain their magnetism — as a proxy for underground temperatures.
The results reveal unusually shallow Curie depths and high heat flow beneath the northern Transantarctic Mountains, supporting the idea that warm mantle material is helping to prop up the mountain range from below. The study also finds pockets of elevated heat flow in the adjacent Wilkes Subglacial Basin and the Rennick Graben, regions hidden beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.
These heat flow estimates are important for understanding ice sheet dynamics, since basal heat flow influences whether the bottom of the ice sheet melts and how ice flows. The findings provide new constraints on the thermal state of East Antarctica, which remains one of the least explored continents on Earth.
I am an ARC Industry Research Fellow in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at The University of Melbourne. I am an expert in fusing Earth evolution models with data to understand how groundwater moves critical minerals through the landscape. Related research interests include the cycling of volatiles within the Earth, probabilistic thermal models of the lithosphere to unravel past tectonic and climatic events, and understanding the how enigmatic volcanoes form.
I am a vocal advocate for the integral role of geoscience in responding to challenges we face in transitioning to the carbon-neutral economy. As an expert in my field, I have been interviewed in national and international print media, TV, and radio on a wide variety of subjects including earthquakes, volcanoes, groundwater, and critical minerals.
