Effective Elastic Thickness Map Reveals Subglacial Structure of East Antarctica

East Antarctica is the least well‐exposed Precambrian shield on Earth. What is known, or surmised, of its geological structure comes from extrapolation over large distances and from geophysics. Here, we present a map of effective elastic thickness, Te, computed from Antarctic bedrock topography and both terrestrial and satellite gravity data. Te is directly related to lithospheric strength and can distinguish domains of differing tectonic history. Our map reveals a broad region of high Te in Wilkes Land, interpreted as a craton, while elsewhere a corridor of low Te meanders between areas of higher Te. The low‐Te belt follows the trend of prominent linear magnetic anomalies identified in the Gamburtsev and Dronning Maud Land provinces, two of which have previously been identified as possible Grenville or Pan‐African age sutures.

• Publication year

  2021

• Venue

  Geophysical Research Letters

• Publication date

  2021-02-22

• Fields of study

  Environmental Science, Geology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1029/2020GL091576
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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