A decade of Global Positioning System (GPS) data have been collected at bedrock sites in southern Victoria Land, Antarctica. Measured motions of the crust have been examined to determine if ongoing tectonic deformation occurs within the study area, across the structural boundary between East and West Antarctica. Crustal motions are used to test for activity over the offshore Terror Rift, where young faulting is documented, and to asses locally whether the active Erebus volcano deforms the crust. Bedrock motions caused by large scale ice-mass changes that have occurred in the area since the Last Glacial Maximum are also a major focus of the study.
The horizontal GPS motions record Antarctic plate motion of ~15 mm/yr to the southeast. No deformation is observed over the Transantarctic Mountains Front Zone. Very small amounts of deformation are observed along the Terror Rift, however the recorded direction of motions may be the result of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA), rather than active tectonics. Recorded motions observed to the south of Ross Island suggest that the Terror Rift continues beneath the Ross Ice Shelf. No volcanic loading signal is observed.
Vertical crustal motions exhibit a down-to-the-east tilt over the study area. A suite of earth models, including more than three hundred different mantle viscosity profiles, three different lithospheric thicknesses and three different ice histories, were used to model uplift due to Glacial Isostatic Adjustment driven by ice mass change. None replicate the observed tilt. Two Relative Sea Level curves for the region also could not be replicated by GIA models examined. Comparison of GPS vertical velocities and our GIA models produce well-constrained earth models for the study area, but suggest that current ice history models for the region must be revised to replicate measured crustal motions.
We compare the output of our GPS-constrained models with published crustal uplift rates used in modern ice mass balance estimates from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission. Application of our model, with a factor of two weaker West Antarctic mantle, increases the apparent ice mass loss from West Antarctica by about 50%.