Constraints on transient and power-law rheologies from rapid uplift in the Antarctic Peninsula

Commencement of large glacial unloading in the Antarctic Peninsula since 1995, and especially 2002, is now well observed in terms of the unloading and the solid Earth response. The observed uplift requires a viscoelastic response to the unloading, and modelling based on a linear Maxwell rheology closely reproduces the observations. However, wider geophysical and laboratory studies suggest that a more complex rheological model may be required to correctly interpret the observed deformation. This well observed event offers a rare opportunity to constrain the rheology of the upper mantle using post-glacial rebound data and without large ambiguity in the ice history. Here, we report on two separate modelling efforts, respectively adopting a linear viscoelastic Burgers and power-law rheology, and discuss the constraints placed on such models by this dataset.