HR: 10:20h
AN: PP22B-01 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: Towards a Climate History of the Weddell Sea Region from Berkner Island, Antarctica
AU: * Mulvaney, R
EM: r.mulvaney@bas.ac.uk
AF: British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0ET United Kingdom
AU: McCormack, T
PP22B-01 AF: British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0ET United Kingdom
AU: Littot, G
PP22B-01 AF: British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0ET United Kingdom
AU: Wolff, E W
PP22B-01 AF: British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0ET United Kingdom
AU: Barnola, J
PP22B-01 AF: Laboratoire de Glaciologie et G‚ophysique de l'Environnement, BP96, St. Martin d'HŠres, 38402 France
AU: Chappelaz, J
PP22B-01 AF: Laboratoire de Glaciologie et G‚ophysique de l'Environnement, BP96, St. Martin d'HŠres, 38402 France
AU: Raynaud, D
PP22B-01 AF: Laboratoire de Glaciologie et G‚ophysique de l'Environnement, BP96, St. Martin d'HŠres, 38402 France
AU: Wagenbach, D
PP22B-01 AF: Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 229, Heidelberg, 69120 Germany
AU: Arrowsmith, C
PP22B-01 AF: Isotope Geosciences Laboratory, Natural Environment Research Council, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG United Kingdom
AB: During the 2004/05 austral field season we succeeded in drilling an ice core to the bedrock on Berkner Island, Antarctica. Drilling began in 2002/03 with the establishment of the drilling infrastructure, and a cased pilot hole to 88 m, continued in 2003/04 reaching 526 m, and again in 2004/05. In January 2005, at a depth of 948.5 m from the surface, the drill brought up sediment from beneath the ice sheet, making this only the fifth Antarctic ice core project ever to reach the very base of the ice sheet. Initial analysis of the stable isotopes and methane shows that the Berkner ice core contains a record of climate change spanning at least 50 kyrs. The transition from the LGM to the Holocene is at a depth of 300 to 350 m above the bed, in line with modelling predictions. We present the initial data, including stable isotopes, gases, and soluble chemistry, and discuss the potential to determine the climate history of the Weddell Sea region (a source of cold bottom water to the Atlantic).
DE: 0724 Ice cores (4932)
DE: 4926 Glacial
DE: 4932 Ice cores (0724)
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005