Technologies for retrieving sediment cores in Antarctic subglacial settings

• Published in: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences
• Main Authors: Hodgson, Dominic A., Bentley, Michael J., Smith, James A., Klepacki, Julian, Makinson, Keith, Smith, Andrew M., Saw, Kevin, Scherer, Reed, Powell, Ross, Tulaczyk, Slawek, Rose, Mike, Pearce, David, Mowlem, Matt, Keen, Peter, Siegert, Martin J.
• Other Authors: UK Natural Environment Research Council Consortium
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 2016
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctic; George VI Ice Shelf; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf; Larsen Ice Shelf; Rutford Ice Stream; Whillans Ice Stream
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2015.0056; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.2015.0056; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsta.2015.0056

Accumulations of sediment beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet contain a range of physical and chemical proxies with the potential to document changes in ice sheet history and to identify and characterize life in subglacial settings. Retrieving subglacial sediments and sediment cores presents several unique challenges to existing technologies. This paper briefly reviews the history of sediment sampling in subglacial environments. It then outlines some of the technological challenges and constraints in developing the corers being used in sub-ice shelf settings (e.g. George VI Ice Shelf and Larsen Ice Shelf), under ice streams (e.g. Rutford Ice Stream), at or close to the grounding line (e.g. Whillans Ice Stream) and in subglacial lakes deep under the ice sheet (e.g. Lake Ellsworth). The key features of the corers designed to operate in each of these subglacial settings are described and illustrated together with comments on their deployment procedures.