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Grounding-Line Basal Melt Rates Determined Using Radar-Derived Internal Stratigraphy, Ginny Catania, Christina L. Hulbe, Howard Conway

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

We use ice-penetrating radar data across grounding lines of Siple Dome and Roosevelt Island, Antarctica, to measure the spatial pattern, magnitude and duration of sub-ice-shelf melting at these locations. Stratigraphic layers across the grounding line show, in places, a large-amplitude downwarp at, or slightly downstream of, the grounding line due to sub-ice-shelf basal melting. Localized downwarping indicates that melting is transient; melt rates, or the grounding line position, have changed within a few hundred years in order to produce the observed stratigraphy. Elsewhere, no meltrelated stratigraphic signature is preserved. In part, heterogeneity in the amount of sub-ice-shelf melt is due …