Brief communication: Identification of 140 000-year-old blue ice in the Grove Mountains, East Antarctica, by krypton-81 dating

The presence of exceptionally old ice and relative ease of access make Antarctic blue-ice areas (BIAs) attractive paleoclimate archives. However, only a handful of BIAs, mostly situated in West Antarctica and along the Transantarctic Mountains, have been investigated for this purpose. Here, we prese...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Cryosphere
Main Authors: Hu, Zhengyi, Jiang, Wei, Yan, Yuzhen, Huang, Yan, Tang, Xueyuan, Li, Lin, Ritterbusch, Florian, Yang, Guo-Min, Lu, Zheng-Tian, Shi, Guitao
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2024
Subjects:
article
Verlagsveröffentlichung
Antarctic
East Antarctica
West Antarctica
Transantarctic Mountains
Bia
Princess Elizabeth Land
Grove Mountains
Antarc*
Antarctica
The Cryosphere
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-1647-2024
https://noa.gwlb.de/receive/cop_mods_00072763
https://noa.gwlb.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/cop_derivate_00070959/tc-18-1647-2024.pdf
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/18/1647/2024/tc-18-1647-2024.pdf
Description
Summary:The presence of exceptionally old ice and relative ease of access make Antarctic blue-ice areas (BIAs) attractive paleoclimate archives. However, only a handful of BIAs, mostly situated in West Antarctica and along the Transantarctic Mountains, have been investigated for this purpose. Here, we present the age of surface ice from the Grove Mountains BIA in Princess Elizabeth Land, East Antarctica, determined by measuring 81Kr in the trapped air. Two samples yield an average age of 143-29+33 kyr. Together with the reported terrestrial age of a chondrite, we conclude that the Grove Mountains BIA holds considerable potential for paleoclimate studies.

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