TitleA continent under ice AbstractToday Antarctica is the stage for active volcanoes, rising mountains and the formation of deep marine basins. Amidst the arid desert landscape of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, geological processes operate that are similar to those on Mars and other planets. Yet entire mountain ranges and one of the world's largest volcanic provinces disappear completely under the smooth Antarctic ice sheets, and geologists need to use geophysical and remote-sensing techniques to visualise the topography and describe the physical properties of the continent under ice. The shape of the continent, its mountain ranges and landforms directly reflect the underlying geology and plate tectonic processes of the past and present. The Transantarctic Mountains divide the continent into two geological provinces, East and West Antarctica. Each of these unequal parts has its own geological history which resulted in distinct crustal properties. While East Antarctica's crust is thick and continuous, the West Antarctic crust is thinner and varies in thickness, which means that a large part of it and the ice sheet that sits above lie below the surface of the ocean. Copyright Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015.AcknowledgementsN/A
TypeBookCitationCook, Y. and Storey, B. (2016). A continent under ice. In: Liggett, D., Storey, B., Cook, Y., and Meduna, V (eds) Exploring the Last Continent: An Introduction to Antarctica. Springer. pp 9-28 IdentifierCook2016aRelevancerank3
