April 15, 2021
Did you know that in addition to investigating the volcanoes of the American southwest, Bureau researchers Bill McIntosh, Nelia Dunbar, Nels Iverson and Matt Zimmerer have a long history of studying the active volcanoes in West Antarctica? Funded through a number of National Science Foundation grants, these reseachers have used geologic mapping, electron microprobe chemical analyses, and argon geochronology (three specialities of the Bureau) to piece together the history of three volcanoes in a part of West Antarctica known as Marie Byrd Land. This work has implications for volcanic hazard as well as the understanding how the West Antarctic Ice sheet responds to climate change. A summary of this work has just been published as a chapter entitled Active volcanoes in Marie Byrd Land within the Geological Society of London Lyell Memoir entitled: Volcanism in Antarctica: 200 Million Years of Subduction, Rifting and Continental Break-Up. An abstract of the chapter is available. Authors of the chapter can provide a PDF of the full chapter to colleagues for research purposes.