Consider a portion of the East Antarctican ice sheet that is 2 km thick (in places it is significantly more than this). The mean annual surface temperature is –55°C. The heat flux is 54 mW m^-2, which is a decent average for Antarctica. The thermal conductivity of ice is 2.2 W m^-1 °K^-1, and that of the underlying bedrock is 3.5 W m^-1 °K^-1.

• Calculate and then plot the steady state geotherm for this location, taking the temperature profile down into the underlying rock by 2 km. Assume no heat production from radioactivity takes place.

• At what depth into the bedrock does the temperature of the rock rise above the freezing point of water?