Geophysical Investigations of Marie Byrd Land Evolution (GIMBLE)

Marie Byrd Land represents a significant highland dividing the Amundsen Sea Embayment (ASE) of West Antarctica from its Ross Embayment. Its topographic evolution likely played a key role in the origin of the West Antarctic ice sheet. A number of contesting hypotheses for the origin of Marie Byrd Land make predictions for the potential fields and the geomorphology of the underlying crust.
The Geophysical Investigation of Marie Byrd Land Evolution project was aerogeophysical survey of Marie Byrd Land using with 3 key datasets: gravity, magnetics and radar data. Gravity with collocated radar was collected to constrain the compensation state of Marie Byrd Land, leveraging NSF's investment in the POLENET project; magnetics was collected to assess the potential for ongoing sub ice volcanism (and thus qualitatively assess heat flow); and ice penetrating radar was collected to map out at 5-km resolution the topography of the interior slope of Marie Byrd Land's bedrock, to understand the evolution of erosion and thus regional topography.