Grant Award View - GA67749
Long-term monitoring of solid Earth deformation and structure in East...
The Earth beneath Antarctica is not cold and static but highly dynamic. Its changing shape results from past and present changes in the amount of ice resting on it as well as forces internal to the Earth. These are very poorly understood in Antarctica, and in East Antarctica in particular.
Understanding these processes requires a detailed understanding of the interior properties of the Earth and the history of ice loading changes from 20,000 years before present until today. Alternatively, by measuring present-day deformation using GPS, and inferring the properties of the Earth from seismology, we can obtain new information on past and present ice loading changes.
This project will lengthen existing East Antarctic GPS and seismic records to determine deformation patterns, and their changes over time, and to estimate Earth's interior properties. These remain necessary for understanding Antarctica's contribution to past and present sea level change from altimetry and space gravimetry.