Science goals for a Mars Polar Cap subsurface mission : optical approaches for investigations of inclusions in ice

• Main Authors: Carsey, Frank, Mogensen, Claus T., Behar, Alberto, Engelhardt, Hermann, Lane, Arthur L.
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Pasadena, CA : Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2002. 2006
• Subjects: glaciology; dust; scattering; Antarctic; Greenland; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Greenland ice cores; ice core
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2014/39582

The Mars Polar Caps are highly interesting features of Mars and have received much recent attention with new and exciting data on morphology, basal units, and layered outcroppings. We have examined the climatological, glaciological, and geological issues associated with a subsurface exploration of the Mars North Polar Cap and have determined that a finescale optical examination of ice in a borehole, to examine the stratigraphy, geochemistry and geochronology of the ice, is feasible. This information will enable reconstruction of the development of the cap as well as prediction of the properties of its ice. We present visible imagery taken of dust inclusions in archived Greenland ice cores as well as in-situ images of accreted lithologic inclusions in West Antarctica, and we argue for use of this kind of data in Mars climate reconstruction as has been successful with Greenland and Antarctic ice core analysis. . NASA/JPL