Collaborative Research: TAMARA: Transantarctic Mountains Aerogeophysical Research Activities

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Wilson: OPP 9615639 Bell: OPP 9615773 Finn: OPP 9618568 Abstract This award supports an investigation of the structure of the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) in southern Victoria Land, Antarctica. The regional architecture of a key segment of the TAM - West Antarctic rift system boundary will be mapped to help resolve outstanding questions about the evolution of the TAM in southern Victoria Land. This collaborative research program will integrate new aeromagnetic data, to be acquired by a cooperative U.S.-German field campaign, with satellite imagery, geological and structural mapping, and existing ground-based, airborne, and marine geophysical data. This integrated data base will be used to map large-scale structural elements of the crust of the TAM and adjacent ice-covered regions. The first large-scale structural framework for the TAM rift accommodation zone in southern Victoria Land will be generated by this program. This framework will be used to test hypotheses for the geometry of the TAM rift flank, the kinematic and dynamic history of the rift boundary, the patterns of magmatism during Jurassic and Cenozoic rift development, the geometry of the early Paleozoic convergent Ross orogen margin, and the role of this ancestral margin in Mesozoic-Cenozoic rift-flank development. Resolution of these issues will contribute significantly to understanding the tectonic development of the region.