Overview
- The finding was published in Nature Geoscience on June 3, 2026, when researchers formally named the East Antarctic Fan-Shaped Basin Province (EAFBP).
- The EAFBP joins roughly 30 connected subglacial basins under about half of East Antarctica and includes known features such as the Wilkes Basin, the Aurora Basin, and the basin that hosts Lake Vostok.
- Researchers built the map by combining radio-echo sounding, gravity, magnetic and seismic data with crustal models and reconstructed rebound topography to estimate ice-free bed geometry.
- The team interprets the fan pattern as the result of distributed rotational extension, a tectonic process where crust spreads outward from a pivot, but they say the timing and exact mechanics remain unresolved.
- Because the basins channel ice flow and subglacial water, the EAFBP could change projections of where and how the East Antarctic Ice Sheet will respond to warming, and scientists say targeted modeling and new data are now needed to quantify that risk.