ANTARCTICA IS SLIDING SIDEWAYS

 

It's official: East Antarctica is pushing West Antarctica around.

 

Now that West Antarctica is losing weight -- that is, billions of tons of ice per year -- its softer mantle rock is being nudged westward by the harder mantle beneath East Antarctica.

 

The discovery comes from researchers led by The Ohio State University, who have recorded GPS measurements that show West Antarctic bedrock is being pushed sideways at rates up to about twelve millimeters--about half an inch--per year. This movement is important for understanding current ice loss on the continent, and predicting future ice loss.

 

Half an inch doesn't sound like a lot, but it's actually quite dramatic compared to other areas of the planet, explained Terry Wilson, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State. Wilson leads POLENET, an international collaboration that has planted GPS and seismic sensors all over the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

 

This finding is significant, Konfal said, because we use these crustal motions to understand ice loss. "We're witnessing expected movements being reversed, so we know we really need computer models that can take lateral changes in mantle properties into account."

 

Wilson said that such extreme differences in mantle properties are not seen elsewhere on the planet where glacial rebound is occurring.  "We figured Antarctica would be different," she said. "We just didn't know how different."

Read more - http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/East_Antarctica_is_sliding_sideways_999.html

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