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

• 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

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.