Scientists make ominous discovery about volcanoes beneath Antarctic ice sheet
Research on melting glacial ice sheets and the resulting impact on volcanic chambers in the Earth's crust has revealed a startling positive feedback loop effect with alarming implications for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
In the Antarctic, giant ice sheets averaging about 1.3 miles thick weigh heavily on the Earth's crust. However, as the ice melts, less weight bears down on the crust, causing it to shift upward, as Phys.org summarized.
The study — published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems and shared by AGU Publications — examined the effects of the shift on magma chambers by studying volcanic deposits from the Andes dating back 35,000 years.
Findings suggest that when glacial melt occurs, the highly sensitive magma chambers within the crust are disturbed, which could trigger explosive volcanic eruptions in one of Earth's most significant volcanic areas.
The research indicated that as ice sheets lose ice at increasing rates because of warming global temperatures, volcanic explosions could occur at increasing rates and intensity. Extensive melt speeds up the first volatile expulsion — the formation and expansion of gas, the first stage of an eruption — by tens to hundreds of years, per Phys.org.
As a result of the high temperature and strength and close proximity to Antarctic ice, these volcanic eruptions, in turn, can accelerate the loss of glacial ice.
Thus, a dangerous positive feedback loop can be created, with ice melt triggering more intense volcanic eruptions and more frequent volcanic eruptions hastening the disappearance of Antarctic ice sheets.
The study's findings fill critical knowledge gaps that will make it easier for scientists to track the rate of ice sheet disintegration.
Do you think our power grid needs to be upgraded?
Definitely
Only in some states
Not really
I'm not sure
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
Melting ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic has a huge impact on our planet. The Earth depends on ice sheets to reflect sunlight back into space to regulate temperature and create a stable climate. In fact, ice reflects 50% to 70% of the sun's energy away from the planet; without ice, much of that energy would be absorbed.
Global sea levels are also impacted by melting ice. As ice melts, sea levels rise, eroding and submerging coastal communities and critical ecosystems and salinating water supplies. Meanwhile, warming temperatures exacerbate extreme weather events like hurricanes.
Most importantly, studies like this one give us a better understanding of how and why ice sheets are melting so we can mitigate its causes and protect ourselves from its effects.
While there isn't much the average person can do to immediately stop the melting of ice sheets, everyday actions to reduce one's carbon impact are a surefire way to at least slow its progress.
One way individuals can reduce their carbon output is by changing transportation habits. Instead of driving, individuals can try walking, biking, or taking public transportation to avoid the pollution that would otherwise be produced by private vehicles. In fact, replacing any drive of two miles or less with walking or biking can save over 600 pounds of carbon from entering the Earth's atmosphere in a year.
If opting for a different mode of transportation isn't feasible, there are plenty of other ways to decrease your carbon output. Growing your own food, composting, switching to a natural lawn, investing in energy-efficient devices, installing rooftop solar, and swapping a gas vehicle for an electric one are all excellent options, too.
Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
National Geographic
3 hours ago
- National Geographic
Plate Tectonics
There are a few handfuls of major plates and dozens of smaller, or minor, plates. Six of the majors are named for the continents embedded within them, such as the North American, African, and Antarctic plates. Though smaller in size, the minors are no less important when it comes to shaping the Earth. The tiny Juan de Fuca plate is largely responsible for the volcanoes that dot the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The plates make up Earth's outer shell, called the lithosphere. (This includes the crust and uppermost part of the mantle.) Churning currents in the molten rocks below propel them along like a jumble of conveyor belts in disrepair. Most geologic activity stems from the interplay where the plates meet or divide. The movement of the plates creates three types of tectonic boundaries: convergent, where plates move into one another; divergent, where plates move apart; and transform, where plates move sideways in relation to each other. They move at a rate of one to two inches (three to five centimeters) per year. Convergent Boundaries Where plates serving landmasses collide, the crust crumples and buckles into mountain ranges. India and Asia crashed about 55 million years ago, slowly giving rise to the Himalaya, the highest mountain system on Earth. As the mash-up continues, the mountains get higher. Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth, may be a tiny bit taller tomorrow than it is today. These convergent boundaries also occur where a plate of ocean dives, in a process called subduction, under a landmass. As the overlying plate lifts up, it also forms mountain ranges. In addition, the diving plate melts and is often spewed out in volcanic eruptions such as those that formed some of the mountains in the Andes of South America. At ocean-ocean convergences, one plate usually dives beneath the other, forming deep trenches like the Mariana Trench in the North Pacific Ocean, the deepest point on Earth. These types of collisions can also lead to underwater volcanoes that eventually build up into island arcs like Japan. Divergent Boundaries At divergent boundaries in the oceans, magma from deep in the Earth's mantle rises toward the surface and pushes apart two or more plates. Mountains and volcanoes rise along the seam. The process renews the ocean floor and widens the giant basins. A single mid-ocean ridge system connects the world's oceans, making the ridge the longest mountain range in the world. On land, giant troughs such as the Great Rift Valley in Africa form where plates are tugged apart. If the plates there continue to diverge, millions of years from now eastern Africa will split from the continent to form a new landmass. A mid-ocean ridge would then mark the boundary between the plates. Mountains and a rift can be seen along the San Andreas Fault. Photograph by Lloyd Cluff, Corbis Transform Boundaries The San Andreas Fault in California is an example of a transform boundary, where two plates grind past each other along what are called strike-slip faults. These boundaries don't produce spectacular features like mountains or oceans, but the halting motion often triggers large earthquakes, such as the 1906 one that devastated San Francisco.
UPI
3 days ago
- UPI
Scientists sequence avian flu genome found in Antarctica
Penguins line the shore in South Georgia, Antarctica. A team of Chilean scientists has sequenced the first complete genomes of the H5N1 avian influenza virus found in birds in Antarctica. File Photo by L.A. Kelly Whybrow/Royal Nacy/EPA Aug. 15 (UPI) -- A team of Chilean scientists has sequenced the first complete genomes of the H5N1 avian influenza virus found in birds in Antarctica. The work, led by the University of Chile and the Chilean Antarctic Institute, was published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, marking a milestone in pathogen research on the frozen continent. The study, which included sequencing the virus in birds such as Antarctic skuas and terns, provides crucial information for understanding the evolution of H5N1 and its potential spread to other species. Sequencing a virus's genome is like reading its complete genetic code. In this case, genomic analysis of avian flu found in Antarctica showed the virus is part of the variant that has affected South America. "Sequencing and genetically characterizing this virus in Antarctic birds allows us to understand its behavior in an extreme, pristine and particularly vulnerable ecosystem," said Víctor Neira, a professor at the University of Chile's Faculty of Veterinary and Animal Sciences and a member of the research team. Specifically, the phylogenetic analysis showed a high genetic similarity to viruses detected in gulls and fur seals on South Georgia Island, confirming the existence of a viral migration route from South America to Antarctica. The finding underscores the need for constant global epidemiological surveillance and highlights the virus's risk of mutation, experts said. By infecting new species in a different environment, the virus could become more dangerous and pose a threat to human and animal health worldwide. According to the research team, its greatest contribution to Antarctic science is providing essential data on biodiversity and emerging risks in the region. In late 2023, H5N1 reached Antarctica for the first time, breaking the isolation that had kept the continent free of the virus. The first cases were recorded in skuas on South Georgia Island, and during 2024 and 2025, the virus spread to the Antarctic Peninsula and the Weddell Sea, affecting birds such as penguins, cormorants and gulls, as well as marine mammals including fur seals and elephant seals. Recent scientific expeditions detected nearly 200 infected animals from 13 species in more than 20 locations, confirming the outbreak has taken hold in the region and poses a serious threat to its fragile biodiversity.
Gizmodo
5 days ago
- Gizmodo
Antarctica's Ghost Hunters: Inside the World's Biggest Neutrino Detector
Neutrinos are strange little things. This tiny, enigmatic particle with no charge exists in virtually every corner of the universe, but without powerfully sensitive, sophisticated instruments, physicists would have no way of knowing they exist. In fact, trillions are passing through you every second. Physicists devise all sorts of ways to coax neutrinos into the detection range. But IceCube—which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year—stands out in particular for its unique setup: 5,160 digital sensors latched onto a gigantic Antarctic glacier. Recently, the IceCube Collaboration set the most stringent upper limits on a key statistic for ultra-high-energy neutrinos, often found inside cosmic rays. It's also slated to receive some major technological updates later this year, which will make the detector—already one of the largest neutrino experiments on Earth—even larger and stronger than ever. Gizmodo reached out to Carlos Argüelles-Delgado, an astrophysicist at Harvard University and a neutrino expert who's been with IceCube since 2011, when the experiment began its physical operations in Antarctica. We spoke to Argüelles-Delgado about why IceCube is, well, in Antarctica, some highlights from the experiment's 20-year run, and what we can expect from the forthcoming IceCube-Gen2. The following conversation has been lightly edited for grammar and clarity. Gayoung Lee, Gizmodo: Let's begin with the elephant in the room. Why did physicists decide Antarctica was a good place to find neutrinos? Argüelles-Delgado: Yeah. You have a combination of two very difficult problems. You're looking for something that's very rare that produces very small signals, relatively speaking. You want an environment that is very controlled and can produce a large signal at a small background. The IceCube project—kind of a crazy project if you think about it—the idea is we're going to take a glacier about 2.5 kilometers [1.5 miles] tall, which is one of the most transparent mediums that exists on the planet. We're going to deploy these very sensitive light sensors [called digital optical modules] that can detect single light particles known as photons. And so, you have this array of light detectors covering 1 cubic kilometer [0.24 cubic miles] of essentially pitch-dark space. When a neutrino comes from outer space, it can eventually interact with something in the ice and make light, and that's what we see. Gizmodo: It's really difficult to understand what neutrinos actually are. They sound like something churned by particle physicists, but at other times they're discussed in the context of experiments like IceCube, which searches for neutrinos from space. What exactly are neutrinos? Why does it feel like they appear in every niche of physics? Argüelles-Delgado: That's a good question. One reason that neutrinos appear in very different contexts—from particle physics to cosmology or astrophysics—is because neutrinos are fundamental particles. They are particles that cannot be split into smaller pieces, like the electrons. Like we use electrons in laboratories, we also use electrons in detecting physical phenomena. Neutrinos are special because we have open questions about their behaviors and properties [and] about the universe in the highest energy regime, where we observe cosmic rays. So, observing neutrinos in a new setting on a new energy scale is always very exciting. When you try to understand something with a mystery, you look at it from every angle. When there's a new angle, you then ask, 'Is that what we expected to see? Is that not what we expected to see?' Gizmodo: In the spirit of attempting new angles to solve mysteries, what sets IceCube apart from other neutrino detectors? Argüelles-Delgado: It's huge! IceCube is a million times larger than the next neutrino experiment that we have built in the laboratory. It's just huge. Since the interaction rate depends on how many things you're surveying, the larger the volume, the more likely you are to see something. For ultra-high-energy neutrinos [which originate in space], you're always thinking about natural environments—mountains, glaciers, lakes—landscapes converted into experiments. Gizmodo: Antarctica isn't exactly somewhere you can just fly to with a plane ticket. What challenges come from the unique conditions at this remote location? Argüelles-Delgado: You're right. The logistics are very complicated. You have to ship all of these components, and you have to be sure that when you put something in the ice, it will work. It's like when you put something on a satellite on a spaceship. Once it's there, you cannot fix it. It is just there. So the quality requirements are very high, and there are multiple challenges. One of them is drilling the actual holes, through two steps. A mechanical drill makes the first guiding hole. Then we use a custom-made, high-pressure hot water drill that then pumps water to [carve the glacier]. The other part is the cable. The cables in IceCubes are quite special, [holding] the instruments that digitalize the modules, which allows you to have better quality of signal processing. Gizmodo: What are the upcoming upgrades to IceCube, and why are they needed? Argüelles-Delgado: The upgrade has two functions. One of them is that we need to better understand the glacier where IceCube is embedded. Obviously, we didn't make that glacier. We just put things on the glacier. And the better we understand the glacier and its optical properties—how light travels in that glacier—the better we can actually do neutrino physics. So we're going to install a bunch of cameras and light sources to try to sort of survey the glacier better. We're also installing a bunch of new sensors [for] a larger version of IceCube, called IceCube-Gen2. When you do science, you want to test new things but also measure things. We are not going to be able to extend the detector volume, but instead we're going to put [sensors] in the innermost part of the detector to allow us to better measure lower-energy neutrinos in IceCube. Low-energy neutrinos are important because at low energies, the neutrinos experience something known as flavor oscillation, which means that the neutrinos, as they travel from one side of the planet to the other, change in type. That is actually a quantum mechanical phenomenon of microscopic scales. IceCube shows one of the best measurements of that physics. Gizmodo: You've been a part of IceCube's journey since the beginning. In your view, what are some of the main highlights the experiment has accomplished? Argüelles-Delgado: First, we discovered that there are ultra-high-energy neutrinos in the universe. These are difficult to detect but not that rare in terms of the universe's energy density, or how much energy per unit volume exists in the universe between protons, neutrinos, and light—they're actually very similar—and IceCube established [this relationship]. A few years ago we saw the first photo of our galaxy in neutrinos. Something very close to my heart is flavor conversion in quantum mechanics. We think neutrinos are produced primarily as electron- and muon-type neutrinos. Now as they travel through space, because of these quantum mechanical effects, they can transform into tau neutrinos, which are not initially there at production. In IceCube, we have found significant evidence of various tau neutrinos at high energy levels. What's amazing about this is that those neutrinos can only be produced and can get to us if quantum mechanics is operating at these extremely long distances. Gizmodo: Given these highlights, what are some things that you are most looking forward to next? Argüelles-Delgado: There are two things that I find very exciting in neutrino astrophysics. One is the neutrinos' quantum behavior, and we do not understand how they acquire their masses. Most particles, when they have mass, have two states that interact with the Higgs boson to produce their masses. Neutrinos, for some reason, we only see one of these states. What I'm excited about is looking for new flavor transformations of very high-energy neutrinos. In some of these scenarios, we could actually have some idea about neutrino mass mechanisms. The second thing is, we have seen neutrinos that are 1,000 times more energetic than the product of the LHC [particle beam]. So are there more at the higher end of neutrinos? Is this where the story ends? What's interesting is that an experiment called KM3NeT in the Mediterranean has reported observations of a neutrino that's [100,000] times more energetic than the LHC beams. I think that is weird. You know, when you see weird things happening, it often means you don't understand something. And so we need to understand that puzzle. Gizmodo: On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that we'll solve these mysteries? Argüelles-Delgado: If we discover the nature of neutrino masses is due to this quantum oscillation phenomenon of the high energies, this will be like a Nobel Prize discovery. Because it's such a big thing, I'll give you at best 1%. Gizmodo: I'd say that's actually pretty good. Argüelles-Delgado: I'd say that's pretty good, yeah. Let's say 1%. I think we'll solve the puzzle of the ultra-high-energy regime; that's a matter of time. That's going to take us easily another 15 years, but it's going to be, again, completely new land. We will see what awaits us. When IceCube started seeing the first neutrinos, we were so confused because we were not expecting to see them [like] this, right? And if all the confusion keeps happening, we'll find more interesting results
