Rutford Ice Stream, West Antarctica
My current research involves the study of extremely small (< magnitude 0), high-density glacial earthquakes (or icequakes) in Rutford Ice Stream, West Antarctica to obtain detailed information about the bed topography and sliding process across the glacier bed. The information and knowledge gained from our study will be used to improve numerical models of glacier flow that are crucial for forecasting Antarctica's contribution to global mean sea level rise.
To make sense of the enormous number of icequakes that we have detected and located in Rutford, we combine traditional seismology techniques with unsupervised machine learning to rapidly cluster similar events that typically indicate regions of continual loading and slipping. Our project goals aim to decipher and sufficiently quantify the complex relations (timing and size) between events, and also generate one of the most comprehensive icequake catalogs of the region to date.
Hot water drilling set up at Rutford Ice Stream in January 2019. Photo courtesy of the British Antarctic Survey.
Our Rutford research site, with several of our seismic arrays circled in green.
The seismic signals generated in Rutford are extremely clean, with low noise levels, due to Antarctica's isolated location.
A sample microseismic event catalog, with the location of thousands of detected icequakes shown relative to Rutford's bed features and geometry. Image courtesy of Sofia-Katerina Kufner.