Characterization of Titan Dome, East Antarctica, and potential as an ice core target

• Main Authors: Beem, Lucas H., Young, Duncan A., Greenbaum, Jamin S., Blankenship, Donald D., Guo, Jingxue, Bo, Sun
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Antarctic; East Antarctic Ice Sheet; East Antarctica; South Pole; Titan; Antarc*; Antarctica; ice core; Ice Sheet; South pole
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2020-210; https://tc.copernicus.org/preprints/tc-2020-210/

Titan Dome is located about 200 km from the South Pole along the 180◦ meridian within the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. Based on sparse data, it is a region that is identified as having a higher probability of containing ice that would capture the middle Pleistocene transition (1.25 to 0.7 Ma) as a paleoclimate proxy. New aerial geophysical observations collected over Titan Dome were used to characterize the region and assess its suitability as a paleoclimate ice core site. The radar coupled with an available ice core age model enabled the tracing of isochronal layers throughout the region which also served as constraints on basal ice age modeling. The results of the survey revealed new basal topographic detail, constrained the location of Titan Dome, which differs between community datasets, and suggests that the basal ice beneath Titan Dome is too young to be relevant to study of the middle Pleistocene transition.