<html>
<p><center><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmRe34exSzJbZviK2Zd3NcQuDLNQrdysy2maLKec1PRK9t/antarctic_landscape.jpg" width="1000" height="666"/><strong>What scientists can tell us about the mysterious southern continent.</strong></center></p>
<blockquote><strong>These are not volcanoes, but an image of the ice that the actual volcanoes are under would not be very interesting.<br>
Flickr user </strong><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cmichel67/11257027656"><strong>Christopher Michel</strong></a></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.popsci.com/tags/volcanoes">Volcanoes</a> in <a href="http://www.popsci.com/tags/antarctica">Antarctica</a> and pieces of fruit in fruit cake are much more common than you might think. But at least dry cherries will not contribute to <a href="http://www.popsci.com/tags/climate-change">climate change</a>.</p>
<p>This week, a group of researchers at the University of Edinburgh discovered <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_150300337491311&key=909baa5ef8a2918e3d459c8422cd1d89&libId=j6gwwzdi01011mhf000DAed0dvw79&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.popsci.com%2F91-volcanoes-and-also-fruitcake&v=1&out=http%3A%2F%2Fsp.lyellcollection.org%2Fcontent%2Fearly%2F2017%2F05%2F26%2FSP461.7&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.popsci.com%2Fscience&title=Important%20things%20found%20in%20Antarctica%20this%20week%3A%2091%20volcanoes%20and%20also%20a%20fruitcake%20%7C%20Popular%20Science&txt=91%20previously%20unknown%20volcanoes">91 unknown volcanoes</a> in a region of West Antarctica. Meanwhile, the Antarctic Heritage Trust found a 106-year-old fruit cake on the nearby Adare cable. To be clear, these are not equally important findings. Fruitcakes, while excellent punchlines in all sorts of holiday jokes, do not indicate how glaciers could move or melt. They can not tell you anything about the geology of a region (although their survival makes it clear just how freaking cold and dry the air is). Volcanoes, on the other hand, can say a lot.</p>
<hr/>
<h2>It’s actually unsurprising that there are lots of volcanoes in Antarctica!</h2>
<p>It may seem strange that there are so many mountains loaded with magma buried beneath a gigantic layer of ice. Fire and <a href="http://www.popsci.com/tags/ice">ice</a> do not go together (except in songs and <a href="http://www.popsci.com/game-of-thrones-weapons-master">certain fantasy novels</a>, of course). The reality is that Antarctica is actually an excellent breeding ground for <a href="http://www.popsci.com/tags/volcano">volcanoes</a>.</p>
<p>Those exploding mountains are not producing the vomiting magma, they are basically holes in the earth's crust that allow the molten layer to bypass. Most parts of the crust are too thick for a hole to form at random, so volcanoes tend to appear in certain weak spots. The edges of <a href="http://www.popsci.com/tags/plate-tectonics">tectonic plates</a> - gigantic pieces of bark floating essentially above hot magma underneath - tend to be geologically active areas. Two plates that slide against each other lead to earthquakes, pieces that press together can form mountains, and crevices and valleys open where the plates separate.</p>
<p>Volcanoes tend to emerge in the last two scenarios, since the same movement can force the magma up and out of the point of rupture. The Pacific Ring of Fire is a giant converging line, while the middle Atlantic crest is a divergent line.</p>
<p><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmbGwXU2LJBUy1e1vRUeZArjf5ohUDVE5PrSsCFNdT8pVe/plate_tectonics_volcanoes.gif" width="1000" height="629"/></p>
<blockquote><strong>You can see how the volcanoes tend to emerge along the edges of the plates, although it is true that challenging given the terrible color scheme here ...<br>
USGS</strong></blockquote>
<h2>Antarctica is literally wearing thin</h2>
<p>The situation in Antarctica is completely different. The preponderance of volcanoes is not because two separate plates move, but because a plate is stretching. All Antarctica sits on a single plate (properly called Antarctic plate), but that piece is beginning to slowly separate. A similar thing is occurring in East <a href="http://www.popsci.com/tags/africa">Africa</a>, where geologists estimate that one plate will divide in two in about 10 million years. Meanwhile, a harvest of volcanoes has emerged where the crust is wearing away.</p>
<p>The Western Antarctic Rift System, where Edinburgh geologists found the new volcanoes, is spreading in the same way. It is harder to study because of all that ice.</p>
<p><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmQFjf3TVd77WWStHuxKjMGrak7qL4EeTcyRigJhsgzJdF/antarctica_map.png" width="1000" height="999"/></p>
<blockquote><strong>The last volcanoes were found in the land of Marie Byrd in West Antarctica, while the fruitcake was discovered in Cape Adare (which is at the tip of Victoria Land)<br>
NASA</strong></blockquote>
<h2>It’s unclear whether these volcanoes will erupt any time soon</h2>
<p>So that's fine, there are a lot of volcanoes under the ice. What we all really want to know is: Will these things explode? And really, will they erupt sometime soon?</p>
<p>The unsatisfactory answer is that we are not sure. Clues about current activity there are pointing in both directions, and the way the researchers found the volcanoes does not tell them anything about the activity. They basically mapped the crust under the ice and used a mathematical model to determine which structures similar to the mountains were probably volcanoes. Since there were already 47 known volcanic points, geologists could predict which forms tend to be volcanoes rather than just mountains. But the shape of a volcano does not determine the likelihood of it erupting.</p>
<p>Some previous studies have suggested that the bark section on which West Antarctica sits is <a href="http://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go&jsonp=vglnk_150300400765112&key=909baa5ef8a2918e3d459c8422cd1d89&libId=j6gwwzdi01011mhf000DAed0dvw79&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.popsci.com%2F91-volcanoes-and-also-fruitcake%23page-5&v=1&out=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Fngeo%2Fjournal%2Fv6%2Fn12%2Ffull%2Fngeo1992.html&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.popsci.com%2Fscience&title=Important%20things%20found%20in%20Antarctica%20this%20week%3A%2091%20volcanoes%20and%20also%20a%20fruitcake%20%7C%20Popular%20Science&txt=particularly%20unstable">particularly unstable</a>, which would make <a href="http://www.popsci.com/tags/volcanic-eruption">eruptions</a> more likely. But the fissure is unusually low in elevation, and active volcanic areas tend to be high in elevation. On the other hand, the volcanoes do not seem to have eroded much, and that would mean that they are geologically young and therefore more active. So the result is: we have no real idea.</p>
<h2>Eruptions aren’t our biggest concern</h2>
<p>Yes, an eruption under Antarctica would melt massive amounts of ice, raise sea level and produce general chaos. But perhaps the most worrying (and most realistic) scenario is that much tectonic activity and a slimming crust will heat the bottom of Antarctic ice sheets. That would change the way glaciers move and how fast they will melt in a way we can not predict now.</p>
<h1>Oh right, about that cake...</h1>
<p><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmRfat8vXUozAYhioRNK7NYRorfHRmPpJw27gan4r7JsbM/106_year_old_fruitcake.jpg" width="1000" height="667"/></p>
<blockquote><strong>The fruitcake, fated never to be eaten <br>
Antarctic Heritage Trust </strong></blockquote>
<p>Why bring a fruit cake to Antarctica? For starters, it is dense in calories. When you are strapped for space and in need of a lot of energy to maintain body heat, it is helpful to have food with dense calories.</p>
<p>It has survived for so long because Antarctica is basically a giant freezer. And a nice dense, dry fruit cake wrapped and seated inside a can is a recipe for conservation. It only had a faintly stale smell, reportedly, but unfortunately no one was game to take a bite. It will be preserved more and restored (the tin, not the cake), and then will be put back into the hut where it came from. Antarctic tourism is sure to boom as people clamoring to see the old English treatment.</p>
<h3>Long live the fruitcake. </h3>
<p><br></p>
<p>Source/Credits:<br>
<a href="http://www.popsci.com/91-volcanoes-and-also-fruitcake?dom=psc&loc=contentwell&lnk=important-things-found-in-antarctica-this-week-91-volcanoes-and-also-a-fruitcake&dom=section-1">Popular Science</a></p>
<hr/>
<p><center><strong><a href="https://steemit.com/@raviraj4you">@raviraj4you</a> thank you to read this post.</strong></center></p>
<hr/>
<p><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmduMY9VUzzWegeeo5VXPKpMHuLQiajMrB2uyV8TMZ4kAs/upvote%20follow%20resteem.gif"/></p>
</html>