Scientists Discover a Vast Structure Hiding Beneath Antarctica's Ice

Key Points:

• Researchers led by geophysicist Egidio Armadillo have identified a massive fan-shaped geological province beneath East Antarctica, named the East Antarctic Fan-Shaped Basin Province (EAFBP), consisting of about 30 connected basins spreading outward from a central pivot point near the South Pole.
• The EAFBP likely formed before the breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent, creating a zone of weakness that may have influenced the separation of Antarctica and Australia and continues to impact ice flow and landscape evolution beneath half of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.
• The discovery was made by reconstructing Antarctica's topography after removing the ice sheet's weight, combining radar, gravity, seismic, and magnetic data, revealing a radial pattern resembling a tectonic feature called a sphenochasm, indicative of rotational extension of the crust.
• This fan-shaped structure may explain the formation of major Antarctic mountain ranges like the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains and Transantarctic Mountains, though the exact timing and complexity of the tectonic events remain uncertain and require further study.
• The findings shed new light on Antarctica's hidden ancient landscape and tectonic history, providing crucial insights into Earth's geological past and aiding better predictions of ice sheet dynamics; the research was published in Nature Geoscience.