The marine portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) in the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) accounts for one-fourth of the cryospheric contribution to global sea-level rise and is vulnerable to catastrophic collapse. The bedrock response to ice mass loss, glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), was thought to occur on a time scale of 10,000 years. We used new GPS measurements, which show a rapid (41 millimeters per year) uplift of the ASE, to estimate the viscosity of the mantle underneath. We found a much lower viscosity (4 × 10 pascal-second) than global average, and this shortens the GIA response time scale from tens to hundreds of years. Our finding requires an upward revision of ice mass loss from gravity data of 10% and increases the potential stability of the WAIS against catastrophic collapse.

Since 2007Since /2008, seismographs were deployed in many new locations across much of Antarctica.

Source parameter inversion of P and SH waveforms and amplitudes for 20 shallow earthquakes using a singular value decomposition technique provides important constraints on the tectonics and relative plate motions of the Scotia Sea region. The derived focal mechanisms show both thrust and strike‐slip faulting along the North Scotia Ridge and normal and strike‐slip faulting along the South Scotia Ridge. Two thrust faulting mechanisms south of Tierra del Fuego indicate diffuse convergence of the Antarctic plate along the western margin of the Scotia plate. Earthquakes are consistent with active subduction and back arc spreading along the South Shetland Trench and Bransfield Strait. The depths of two earthquakes (35 km and 55 km) and one shallow thrust faulting event suggest continued subduction along the South Shetland Trench, but the underthrusting is largely aseismic due to the young plate age and slow subduction rate. The magnitude and depth of normal faulting earthquakes along Bransfield Strait and the South Scotia Ridge are suggestive of diffuse extension rather than typical organized mid‐ocean spreading, which is generally associated with smaller and shallower earthquakes. Eight strike‐slip and thrust faulting events provide well‐constrained slip vectors showing Scotia plate motion relative to the surrounding larger plates. Using a four‐plate model (Scotia (SC), South Sandwich (SS), Antarctica (AN) and South America (SA)) and a fixed SA‐AN Euler vector, we inverted these data together with published centroid moment tensor slip vectors along the South Sandwich Trench and published marine magnetic data from the SS back arc spreading center to derive the first quantitative plate motion model for the Scotia region. The SC‐SA Euler pole is located in the South Atlantic and shows large latitudinal uncertainties. The SC‐AN pole is better constrained and located in the Weddell Sea. These results predict left‐lateral strike‐slip motion with a component of compression along the North Scotia Ridge, left‐lateral strike‐slip with a component of extension along the South Scotia Ridge, and east‐west compression in Drake Passage. Although no rate data have been published connecting the Scotia plate with the global plate system, Euler vector magnitudes are obtained through closure. The results, though poorly constrained, suggest relative motion rates of 0.5 cm/yr along the North Scotia Ridge and 1.0 cm/yr along the South Scotia Ridge and in Drake Passage.

We estimate the upper mantle temperature of the Antarctic Plate based on the thermoelastic properties of mantle minerals and S velocities using a new 3‐D shear velocity model, AN1‐S. Crustal temperatures and surface heat fluxes are then calculated from the upper mantle temperature assuming steady state thermal conduction. The temperature at the top of the asthenosphere beneath the oceanic region and West Antarctica is higher than the dry mantle solidus, indicating the presence of melt. From the temperature values, we generate depth maps of the lithosphere‐asthenosphere boundary and the Curie temperature isotherm. The maps show that East Antarctica has a thick lithosphere similar to that of other stable cratons, with the thickest lithosphere (~250 km) between Domes A and C. The thin crust and lithosphere beneath West Antarctica are similar to those of modern subduction‐related rift systems in East Asia. A cold region beneath the Antarctic Peninsula is similar in spatial extent to that of a flat‐subducted slab beneath the southern Andes, indicating a possible remnant of the Phoenix Plate, which was subducted prior to 10 Ma. The oceanic lithosphere generally thickens with increasing age, and the age‐thickness correlation depends on the spreading rate of the ridge that formed the lithosphere. Significant flattening of the age‐thickness curves is not observed for the mature oceanic lithosphere of the Antarctic Plate.

Shear-wave splitting analysis of local events recorded on land and on the ocean floor in the Tonga arc and Lau backarc indicate a complex pattern of azimuthal anisotropy that cannot be explained by mantle flow coupled to the downgoing plate. These observations suggest that the direction of mantle flow rotates from convergence-parallel in the Fiji plateau to north-south beneath the Lau basin and arc-parallel beneath the Tonga arc. These results correlate with helium isotopes that map mantle flow of the Samoan plume into the Lau basin through an opening tear in the Pacific plate.

We construct a new seismic model for central and West Antarctica by jointly inverting Rayleigh wave phase and group velocities along with P wave receiver functions. Ambient noise tomography exploiting data from more than 200 seismic stations deployed over the past 18 years is used to construct Rayleigh wave phase and group velocity dispersion maps. Comparison between the ambient noise phase velocity maps with those constructed using teleseismic earthquakes confirms the accuracy of both results. These maps, together with P receiver function waveforms, are used to construct a new 3‐D shear velocity (Vs) model for the crust and uppermost mantle using a Bayesian Monte Carlo algorithm. The new 3‐D seismic model shows the dichotomy of the tectonically active West Antarctica (WANT) and the stable and ancient East Antarctica (EANT). In WANT, the model exhibits a slow uppermost mantle along the Transantarctic Mountains (TAMs) front, interpreted as the thermal effect from Cenozoic rifting. Beneath the southern TAMs, the slow uppermost mantle extends horizontally beneath the traditionally recognized EANT, hypothesized to be associated with lithospheric delamination. Thin crust and lithosphere observed along the Amundsen Sea coast and extending into the interior suggest involvement of these areas in Cenozoic rifting. EANT, with its relatively thick and cold crust and lithosphere marked by high Vs, displays a slower Vs anomaly beneath the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains in the uppermost mantle, which we hypothesize may be the signature of a compositionally anomalous body, perhaps remnant from a continental collision.

Seismic tomography revealed a low seismic velocity (-5%) and high Poisson's ratio (+6%) anomaly covering about 300 square kilometers at the hypocenter of the 17 January 1995, magnitude 7.2, Kobe earthquake in Japan. This anomaly may be due to an overpressurized, fluid-filled, fractured rock matrix that contributed to the initiation of the Kobe earthquake.

Long-period seismic sources associated with glacier motion have been recently discovered, and an increase in ice flow over the past decade has been suggested on the basis of secular changes in such measurements. Their significance, however, remains uncertain, as a relationship to ice flow has not been confirmed by direct observation. Here we combine long-period surface-wave observations with simultaneous Global Positioning System measurements of ice displacement to study the tidally modulated stick-slip motion of the Whillans Ice Stream in West Antarctica. The seismic origin time corresponds to slip nucleation at a region of the bed of the Whillans Ice Stream that is likely stronger than in surrounding regions and, thus, acts like an 'asperity' in traditional fault models. In addition to the initial pulse, two seismic arrivals occurring 10-23 minutes later represent stopping phases as the slip terminates at the ice stream edge and the grounding line. Seismic amplitude and average rupture velocity are correlated with tidal amplitude for the different slip events during the spring-to-neap tidal cycle. Although the total seismic moment calculated from ice rigidity, slip displacement, and rupture area is equivalent to an earthquake of moment magnitude seven (M(w) 7), seismic amplitudes are modest (M(s) 3.6-4.2), owing to the source duration of 20-30 minutes. Seismic radiation from ice movement is proportional to the derivative of the moment rate function at periods of 25-100 seconds and very long-period radiation is not detected, owing to the source geometry. Long-period seismic waves are thus useful for detecting and studying sudden ice movements but are insensitive to the total amount of slip.