Publications

A conference on Antarctica: an Exploitable Resource too Valuable to Develop? took place at the Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian studies at the University of London in either late 1989 or early 1990. The papers were compiled into this small book (only 104 pages of text exclusive of useful appendices containing maps, texts of the Antarctic treaty and the Convention on the...

The West Antarctic rift system extends over a 3000 × 750 km, largely ice covered area from the Ross Sea to the base of the Antarctic Peninsula, comparable in area to the Basin and Range and the East African rift system. A spectacular rift shoulder scarp along which peaks reach 4–5 km maximum elevation marks one flank and extends from northern Victoria Land-Queen Maud Mountains to the...

No abstract available.

Methane may have been released to the atmosphere during the Quaternary from Arctic shelf gas-hydrates as a result of thermal decomposition caused by climatic warming and rising sea-level; this release of methane (a greenhouse gas) may represent a positive feedback on global warming [Revelle, 1983; Kvenvolden, 1988a; Nisbet, 1990]. We consider the response to sea-level changes by the...

Approximately 6100 km of 3.5-kHz echo-sounding profiles was correlated with a GLORIA side-scan sonar image of the mid-Atlantic United States (34??N, 70??W) lower slope-upper continental rise. The image allows us to map the major erosional and depositional features and to identify major processes that have shaped the area. Interpretation of GLORIA imagery and echo-sounding profiles...

The prediction of large-scale coastal change is an extremely important, but distant goal. Here we describe some of our initial efforts in this direction, using historical bathymetric information along a 150 km reach of the rapidly evolving barrier island coast of Louisiana. Preliminary results suggest that the relative sea level rise rate, though extremely high in the area, has played a...

No abstract available

No abstract available.

SeaBeam bathymetric data and GLORIA (Geologic LOng-Range Inclined Asdic) sidescan sonar images of a 175-km-long section of the Florida escarpment in the eastern Guff of Mexico show that this carbonate escarpment has been eroded since its initial formation, but its morphology suggests that erosional processes have not acted uniformly on the escarpment. Parts of the escarpment are notched...

The different snow and ice types on a glacier may be subdivided according to the glacier-facies concept. The surficial expression of some facies may be detected at the end of the balance year by the use of visible and near-infrared image data from the Landsat multispectral scanner (MSS) and thematic mapper (TM) sensors. Ice and snow can be distinguished by reflectivity differences in...

High-resolution seismic-reflection profiles of the Quicksands, located along a broad ridge on the platform shelf west of Key West, Florida, indicate a significant deposit of non-oolitic carbonate sand occurs in a belt 47 km long by 28 km wide. The surface of the belt is ornamented by large (5 m), migrating tidal bars, oriented in a north-south direction, on which sand waves, oriented in...

We present a detailed velocity model across the 1.1 billion year old Midcontinent Rift System (MRS) in central Lake Superior. The model was derived primarily from onshore-offshore large-aperture seismic and gravity data. High velocities obtained within a highly reflective half-graben that was imaged on coincident seismic reflection data demonstrate the dominantly mafic composition of the...