Internal structure of the ice sheet between Vostok and Dome A revealed by airborne RES

• Main Author: Steinhage, Daniel
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: Alfred Wegener Institute; Antarc*; Antarctic; ice core; Ice Sheet; IPY; Polar Research Institute of China
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/20401/; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.32614

During the IPY 2007/08 the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) mapped with its new ski-equipped research aircraft POLAR 5 ice thickness and internal structure of the East Antarctic ice sheet between deep ice core drill sites using airborne radio-echo sounding (RES). By tracing internal horizons it is possible to transfer age-depth scales from one drill site to another. This is of special interest for the section between the drill site Vostok and the proposed drill site the Dome A summit region. The closed RES profile between Vostok and Dome A shows a very undulated, rough bedrock. The ice thickness varies between 1528 m and 3868 m. Highly varying ice thickness and the steep bedrock hamper the tracking of internal horizons along the profile. However it was possible to trace two horizons along the whole profile and another one between the two end points. The AWI profile has also cross-over points at E 077.38°/S 80.36° E 077.44°/S 80.34 with a ground based RES profile surveyed by colleagues from the Polar Research Institute of China (PRIC) (pers. com. Xueyuan Tang, 2009).