"What’s up down there? The case for volcanic origin has been made. But what exactly is causing the seismic activity?
“Most mountains in Antarctica are not volcanic,” Wiens said, “but most in this area are. Is it because East and West Antarctica are slowly rifting apart? We don’t know exactly. But we think there is probably a hot spot in the mantle here producing magma far beneath the surface.”
“People aren’t really sure what causes DPLs,” Lough said. “It seems to vary by volcanic complex, but most people think it’s the movement of magma and other fluids that leads to pressure-induced vibrations in cracks within volcanic and hydrothermal systems.”"
"Will the new volcano erupt?
“Definitely,” Lough says. “In fact because of the radar shows a mountain beneath the ice I think it has erupted in the past, before the rumblings we recorded.
Will the eruptions punch through a kilometer or more of ice above it?
The scientists calculated that an enormous eruption, one that released a thousand times more energy than the typical eruption, would be necessary to breach the ice above the volcano.
On the other hand a subglacial eruption and the accompanying heat flow will melt a lot of ice. “The volcano will create millions of gallons of water beneath the ice—many lakes full,” says Wiens. This water will rush beneath the ice towards the sea and feed into the hydrological catchment of the MacAyeal Ice Stream, one of several major ice streams draining ice from Marie Byrd Land into the Ross Ice Shelf.
By lubricating the bedrock, it will speed the flow of the overlying ice, perhaps increasing the rate of ice-mass loss in West Antarctica.
“We weren’t expecting to find anything like this,” Wiens says"
So West Antarctica is volcanic and east Antarctica is not. West Antarctica experiences the ice loss, east doesn't. Correlation? Seems nobody is looking, or cares, if it doesn't support AGW.
