Seismic refraction and reflection measurements of the east-west Antarctic plate boundary near the Lowery Glacier and onto the Ross Ice Shelf, south Victoria Land

In the 1990-1991 season, a seismic refraction and reflection experiment was completed along a 142 km long line across the transition zone between Ross Embayment and the Transantarctic Mountains, just south of the Nimrod Glacier near the Lowery Glacier within the Transantarctic Mountains to a point on the Ross Ice Shelf about 100 km distant from the Transantarctic Mountain Front. The aim of this survey was to address the geometry and nature of the transition between East and West Antarctica, the presence or otherwise of the Terror Rift south of Ross Island and the thickness and stratigraphy of the Cenozoic sediments beneath the Ross Ice Shelf. As a follow up to this survey, during the 1994-1995 season, a geophysical traverse was conducted to collected data on the Ross Ice Shelf intended to enhance and extend the image of the crustal structure of the boundary between East and West Antarctica that resulted from the 1990/91 Seismic Experiment. The traverse was carried out at ~82 S and covered a total distance of almost 200km, starting at the edge of the Transantarctic Mountains and moving north-east onto the Ross Ice Shelf. The data collected included GPS data for navigation and position finding, gravity data, magnetic data and radio echo sounding measurements of ice thickness. Measurements of the earth's magnetic field were made over the length of the traverse, such data were not collected on the earlier traverse.