Magnetic anomaly pattern in eastern and southern Dronning Maud Land
Systematic airborne surveys conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute over the last decade have investigated a significant part of Dronning Maud Land (DML). In eastern DML aerogeophysical data were acquired during the 2004 VISA campaign at a line spacing of 20 km. The ongoing WEGAS campaigns improved the line spacing to 10 km and extend the survey area. Recent processing of the combined data sets revealed elongated magnetic anomalies with low amplitudes. These anomalies trend northwest – southeast and are confined in all directions, except towards the southeast, where they can be traced further into older Russian magnetic data sets. However, a sound structural interpretation of these anomalies in the Russian data is highly speculative due to sparser line spacing. Magnetic anomalies with almost similar orientation are found south of the Prince Charles Mountains (PCMEGA) and in the Gamburtsev Region (AGAP). Currently it is not clear, if these anomalies are connected or caused by the same geological process. Furthermore, a high amplitude anomaly with values above 300nT was discovered further to the west in southern DML. This arch-shaped north-south anomaly is over 300 km long and might continue towards the southeast. Though interpretation of its origin is speculative, it is worth to note that it separates the area of elongated low amplitude anomalies in the east from the magnetic patterns of the Coats Land Block and the Shackleton Range in the west. That means the magnetic data show no evidence of a structural link between Shackleton Range and Sør Rondane as proposed in several studies.