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posted by martyb on Thursday November 09 2017, @09:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the 150-vs-200-milliwatts-per-square-meter dept.

NASA Discovers Mantle Plume Almost as Hot as Yellowstone Supervolcano That's Melting Antarctica From Below

A mantle plume producing almost as much heat as [the] Yellowstone supervolcano appears to be melting part of West Antarctica from beneath.

Researchers at NASA have discovered a huge upwelling of hot rock under Marie Byrd Land, which lies between the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea, is creating vast lakes and rivers under the ice sheet. The presence of a huge mantle plume could explain why the region is so unstable today, and why it collapsed so quickly at the end of the last Ice Age, 11,000 years ago.

[...] For 30 years, scientists have suggested that a mantle plume may exist under Marie Byrd Land. Its presence would explain the regional volcanic activity seen in the area, as well as a dome feature that exists there. However, there was no evidence to support this idea.

Now, scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have created advanced numerical models to show how much heat would need to exist beneath the ice to account for their observations—including the dome and the giant subsurface rivers and lakes we know are present on Antarctica's bedrock. As lakes fill and drain, the ice thousands of feet above rises and falls, sometimes by as much as 20 feet.

Study author Hélène Seroussi, from JPL, said when she first heard that a mantle plume might be heating Marie Byrd Land she thought the idea was "crazy."

"I didn't see how we could have that amount of heat and still have ice on top of it," she said in a statement.

Also at BGR and Live Science.

Influence of a West Antarctic mantle plume on ice sheet basal conditions (DOI: 10.1002/2017JB014423) (DX)


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Taibhsear on Thursday November 09 2017, @09:59PM (8 children)

    by Taibhsear (1464) on Thursday November 09 2017, @09:59PM (#594868)

    Nothing in this article says that they actually FOUND a mantle plume and that it IS releasing that much heat. They generated models based off of the data they currently have and determined that IF there was a mantle plume that is how much heat it would need to produce to match the ice melt. Is there an alternate news source that says otherwise?

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  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:10PM

    by tangomargarine (667) on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:10PM (#594870)

    Heh, I was coming here to say exactly that. "We made models that would explain this" is very much not the same as "we took measurements that agree with the hypothetical model we had."

    --
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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:14PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:14PM (#594872)

    . Is there an alternate news source that says otherwise?

    You heard it on S/N here for the first time, folks.
    In fact, it is the Mighty God that raises and drops the ice on top of Marie Byrd Land every (Antarctic) morning - it's the evidence that God lives at the South Pole and exercises every morning - a thing which you should do as well. It fits the reality to 8 sigma, therefore it must be true.

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:22PM (2 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:22PM (#594878)

      Some people are going to get coal under the tree, if they keep talking about the heat released by Santa's Southern Sweatshop ...
      (turns out the elves are more productive with daylight)

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday November 10 2017, @12:38AM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday November 10 2017, @12:38AM (#594939) Homepage

        It's called "climate change" and when that Antarctical superblow happens you're going to have to absorb millions of CIA-trained African migrants, all of whom are "fleeing lesbian and gay danger" and want to cut your heads off while subverting your culture.

        But you wouldn't oppose, much less believe in, such a ridiculous scenario, would you? Anyway, should that happen, to do so would be racist, and nobody likes racists.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday November 10 2017, @01:03AM

        by frojack (1554) on Friday November 10 2017, @01:03AM (#594954) Journal

        Turns out there is a lot of coal in Antarctica, so some are in luck. Especially those shivering in their shacks on Antarctica.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Antarctica [wikipedia.org]

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:33PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday November 09 2017, @10:33PM (#594885) Journal

    including the dome and the giant subsurface rivers and lakes we know are present on Antarctica's bedrock.

    There is uplift and considerable heat being released by the region. On the uplift [springer.com]:

    Volcanism in the Marie Byrd Land (MBL) volcanic province is related to the growth of an 1200 × 500 km structural dome that lies on the Amundsen Sea coast. Spatial and temporal patterns of volcanic activity suggest that dome uplift began around 29–25 Ma and has continued to the present. Uplift has been accompanied by sometimes voluminous basaltic and felsic volcanism and the development of horst and graben structure, with a maximum of ∼3 km of uplift. Estimates of crustal thickness, based on models of gravity data and surface wave dispersion studies, have not resolved questions about the origin of uplift. Mantle plume activity has been proposed; but more detailed tomographic imaging of the mantle, together with seismic determinations of crustal thickness, and the thickness and distribution of sub-ice volcanic rock, are needed to test this, and to answer other petrologic and tectonic questions discussed below.

    That's a huge area, larger than the Yellowstone hotspot uplift, but it might be over a much longer period of time as well.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday November 10 2017, @12:57AM (1 child)

      by frojack (1554) on Friday November 10 2017, @12:57AM (#594950) Journal

      The way I read it is the only thing they were measuring was the amount of heat it takes to do the melting we are seeing today.
      They don't't directly address the uplift in their results, an actually suggest simple rifting as a source of the heat.
      Further, there isn't as much heat as Yellowstone exhibits. Their models show that there is only 3/4 as much heat.

      Plume theories have been around for this area for a long time.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 10 2017, @06:05AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 10 2017, @06:05AM (#595046) Journal
        I got the impression that they were taking into account the uplift in their model as well. *shrug*