Tracking the Cracking: a Holistic Analysis of Rapid Ice Shelf Fracture
Using Seismology, Geodesy, and Satellite Imagery on the Pine Island
Glacier Ice Shelf, West Antarctica
Abstract
Ice shelves regulate the stability of marine ice sheets. We track
fractures on Pine Island Glacier , a quickly-accelerating glacier in
West Antarctica that contributes more to sea level rise than any other
glacier. Using an on-ice seismic network deployed from 2012 to 2014, we
catalog icequakes that dominantly consist of flexural gravity waves.
Icequakes occur near the rift tip and in two distinct areas of the shear
margin, and TerraSAR-X imagery shows significant fracture in each source
region. Rift-tip icequakes increase with ice speed, linking rift
fracture to glaciological stresses and/or localized thinning. Using a
simple flexural gravity wave model, we deconvolve wave propagation
effects to estimate icequake source durations of 19.5 to 50.0 s, and
transient loads of 3.8 to 14.0 kPa corresponding to 4.3 to 15.9 m of
crevasse growth per icequake. These long source durations suggest that
water flow may limit the rate of crevasse opening.