Hidden cascades of seismic ice stream deformation
Ice streams are major regulators of sea level change. However, standard viscous flow simulations of their evolution have limited predictive power owing to incomplete understanding of involved processes. On the Greenland ice sheet, borehole fiber-optic observations revealed a brittle deformation mode that is incompatible with viscous flow, over length scales similar to the resolution of modern ice sheet models: englacial ice quake cascades that are unobservable at the surface. Nucleating near volcanism-related impurities that promote grain boundary cracking, the ice quake cascades appear as a macroscopic form of crystal-scale wild plasticity. A conservative estimate indicates that seismic cascades are likely to produce strain rates that are comparable in amplitude with those measured geodetically, providing a plausible missing link between current ice sheet models and observations.
Authors
- Daniela Jansen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4412-5820)
- Julien Westhoff (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7818-1786)
- Andreas Fichtner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3090-963X)
- Fabian Walter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6952-2761)
- Coen Hofstede (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6015-6918)
- Anders Svensson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4364-6085)
- Eliza Cook (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7927-7974)
- Olaf Eisen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6380-962X)
- Jean‐Paul Ampuero (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4827-7987)
- Dimitri Zigone (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2383-8271)
- B. L. N. Kennett (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2206-5350)
Institutions
- Australian National University (AU)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (DE)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- University of Bremen (DE)
- Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (CH)
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur (FR)
- Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR)
- Université de Strasbourg (FR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science
- Published
- 2025-02-06
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adp8094
- Citations
- 14
- Primary Topic
- Cryospheric studies and observations
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 18.21