Abstract
The Transantarctic Mountains are one of the world's major mountain chains, extending 3,500 km across Antarctica in a belt 200–500 km wide (Fig. 1). The region has been uplifted by at least 4 km since late Mesozoic time, yet there is none of the thrusting, folding, regional metamorphism and andesitic volcanism associated with many other large Cenozoic mountain ranges and apparently related to subduction and subsequent continental collision. Instead, the uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains is attributed here to the delayed effects of the overriding by east Antarctica of anomalously hot asthenosphere forming under west Antarctica in the late Cretaceous. Temperature increases of 100 °C are estimated at the base of the lithosphere, with mantle heat flux increasing by ∼3.5 m W m−2. These changes cause an inferred uplift rate of 90 m Myr−1some 50 Myr later. The late Cenozoic volcanism in the Transantarctic Mountains, typified by activity in Victoria Land, is attributed to the previously heated continental lithosph¨re overriding hot asthenosphere that was brought under Antarctica when it separated from Australia.
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Smith, A., Drewry, D. Delayed phase change due to hot asthenosphere causes Transantarctic uplift?. Nature 309, 536–538 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1038/309536a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/309536a0
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