Scientists Found a Continent-Sized Geological Structure Hiding Beneath Antarctica

Key Points:

• The East Antarctic Ice Sheet, covering about 75% of Antarctica and containing nearly 90% of the planet's freshwater ice, was previously thought to rest on a stable craton but is now found to overlay a complex geological structure with thinner, younger crust forming 30 wedge-shaped "pull-apart basins."
• This newly identified region, named the East Antarctic Fan-Shaped Basin Province (EAFBP), suggests a tectonic mechanism called "distributed rotational extension," where Earth's crust thins and spreads due to rotational pivot points, challenging the notion of East Antarctica's geological stability.
• The basins likely influence ice flow and landscape evolution beneath the ice sheet, potentially explaining mysterious subglacial lakes and heat flows, and may contribute to systemic instability in the ice sheet by promoting heat flow and facilitating ice streams toward the ocean.
• The findings, based on extensive multinational airborne and seismic surveys, provide new insights into why parts of East Antarctica are experiencing faster ice-mass loss, raising concerns about the implications for climate change and global sea-level rise.
• Despite these advances, Antarctica remains a largely unexplored and difficult environment for scientific study, and the complex subglacial geology uncovered by this research will require further investigation to fully understand its impact on ice dynamics and stability.