WHY IS ANTARCTICA ASEISMIC

Abstract

Since the 1950's, a large body of information has been collected on the structure and geophysical characteristics of Antarctica. Data from seismic stations both in the interior of the continent and on its coast indicate that earthquake epicenters encircle the continent but do not occur within it. It will be seen that the continent is indeed aseismic, a fact that requires explanation. In this paper we propose an explanation in terms of the hierarchical block structure of the geophysical medium.