Lowe, M, Mather, B, Green, C orcid.org/0000-0001-9644-4949 et al. (3 more authors) (2023) Anomalously High Heat Flow Regions Beneath the Transantarctic Mountains and Wilkes Subglacial Basin in East Antarctica Inferred From Curie Depth. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 128 (1). e2022JB025423. ISSN 2169-9313
Abstract
The Transantarctic Mountains (TAMs) separate the warmer lithosphere of the Cretaceous-Tertiary West Antarctic rift system and the colder and older provinces of East Antarctica. Low velocity zones beneath the TAM imaged in recent seismological studies have been interpreted as warm low-density mantle material, suggesting a strong contribution of thermal support to the uplift of the TAM. We present new Curie Point Depth (CPD) and geothermal heat flow (GHF) maps of the northern TAM and adjacent Wilkes Subglacial Basin (WSB) based exclusively on high resolution magnetic airborne measurements. We find shallow CPD and high GHF beneath the northern TAM, reinforcing the hypothesis of thermal support of the topography of the mountain range. Additionally, this study demonstrates, that limiting spectral analysis to areas with a high density of aeromagnetic measurements increases the resolution of CPD estimates revealing localized shallow CPD and associated high heat flow in the Central Basin of the WSB and the Rennick Graben (RG). Across the study area the CPD ranges from 15 to 35 km and the GHF values range from 30 to 110 mW/m2. The recovered CPD range is compatible with recent Moho depth estimates, as the CPD predominantly lies within the crust, rather than in the magnetite-poor mantle. GHF estimates, based on the CPD estimates, show a good agreement to sparse in situ GHF measurements and the location of active volcanoes. Comparison to existing continent-wide GHF estimates shows strong differences from magnetically-derived heat flow estimates, while seismologically-derived heat flow estimates show the best agreement to our results.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022. 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. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Institute for Applied Geosciences (IAG) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Jan 2023 12:29 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 23:13 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2022jb025423 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1029/2022jb025423 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:195228 |