Extensive palaeo-surfaces beneath the Evans–Rutford region of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet control modern and past ice flow

Carter, Charlotte M.; Bentley, Michael J.; Jamieson, Stewart S. R.; Paxman, Guy J. G.; Jordan, Tom A.; Bodart, Julien A.; Ross, Neil; Napoleoni, Felipe

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2277-2024

Articles | Volume 18, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2277-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Icy landscapes of the past (CP/ESSD/ESurf/TC inter-journal...

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-2277-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 5

Research article

|

07 May 2024

Research article |

| 07 May 2024

Extensive palaeo-surfaces beneath the Evans–Rutford region of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet control modern and past ice flow

Charlotte M. Carter, Michael J. Bentley, Stewart S. R. Jamieson, Guy J. G. Paxman, Tom A. Jordan, Julien A. Bodart, Neil Ross, and Felipe Napoleoni

Data sets

Processed bed elevation picks from airborne radar depth sounding across the Evans Ice Stream, Southern Palmer Land (1994/95 season) (Version 1.0) H. Corr https://doi.org/10.5285/2c261013-9a0e-447d-a5bb-b506610b14ff

Processed airborne radio-echo sounding data from the GRADES-IMAGE survey covering the Evans and Rutford Ice Streams, and ice rises in the Ronne Ice Shelf, West Antarctica (2006/2007) (Version 1.0) H. Corr https://doi.org/10.5285/c7ea5697-87e3-4529-a0dd-089a2ed638fb

Processed bed elevation picks from airborne radar depth sounding across Ellsworth Land (2001) (Version 1.0) H. Corr and A. Smith https://doi.org/10.5285/4b2ccda1-91ec-4c57-9ae0-07b9a387f352

The Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (Version 1) I. Howat et al. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SAIK8B

Rock outcrop map of the Antarctic continent derived from Landsat 8 imagery A. Burton-Johnson et al. https://doi.org/10.5285/f7947381-6fd7-466f-8894-25d3262cbcf5

Quantarctica K. Matsuoka et al. https://doi.org/10.21334/npolar.2018.8516e961

MEaSUREs BedMachine Antarctica (Version 3) M. Morlighem https://doi.org/10.5067/FPSU0V1MWUB6

MEaSUREs InSAR-Based Antarctica Ice Velocity Map, Version 2 E. Rignot et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/D7GK8F5J8M8R

Radarsat Antarctic Mapping Project Digital Elevation Model, Version 2 H. Liu et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/8JKNEW6BFRVD

Short summary

We use radio-echo sounding data to investigate the presence of flat surfaces beneath the Evans–Rutford region in West Antarctica. These surfaces may be what remains of laterally continuous surfaces, formed before the inception of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and we assess two hypotheses for their formation. Tectonic structures in the region may have also had a control on the growth of the ice sheet by focusing ice flow into troughs adjoining these surfaces.