Scientists have recorded thousands of ‘ice quakes’ in Antarctica at night, a phenomenon that may help track glacier melting and explain the breaking of large ice shelves.
The seismic phenomenon was recorded by a team from the University of Chicago, which placed seismometres for 60 days during the melt season at two locations — one dry and the other slushier — near seasonal meltwater lakes on the McMurdo Ice Shelf.
The wetter location was alive with seismic activity at night, explained possibly by pools of partially melted ice expanding and freezing at night, according to the report in the journal Annals of Glaciology.