| Summary: | An ice radar system was used to detect sub-glacial disseminated sulfide zones beneath the Mt. Henry Clay Glacier in southeast Alaska. The sulfides, which were verified by a number of drill holes, were not detected by prior geophysical surveys. The zones were delineated by measuring lateral variations in the amplitude of radar echoes from the ice-bedrock interface at the base of the glacier. The reflected power from the disseminated sulfides ranged from 20 percent to 60 percent of the theoretically predicted reflected power from a perfect conductor at the base of the ice. The success of this experiment suggests that ice radar should be considered an important tool for direct mineral exploration in ice-covered terrain. A low-cost portable ice-radar receiver based on a personal computer (PC) was designed and constructed for this research. The radar receiver has proved to be very versatile because the PC can control signal acquisition, display radar wave forms in near-real time, and perform sophisticated signal processing as measurements in the field. the PC-based ice-radar receiver was used for ice-thickness and bedrock power-reflection coefficient surveys of Mount Estelle Glacier in the Alaska Range of southcentral Alaska. An ice radar system was used to detect sub-glacial disseminated sulfide zones beneath the Mt. Henry Clay Glacier in southeast Alaska. The sulfides, which were verified by a number of drill holes, were not detected by prior geophysical surveys. The zones were delineated by measuring lateral variations in the amplitude of radar echoes from the ice-bedrock interface at the base of the glacier. The reflected power from the disseminated sulfides ranged from 20 percent to 60 percent of the theoretically predicted reflected power from a perfect conductor at the base of the ice. The success of this experiment suggests that ice radar should be considered an important tool for direct mineral exploration in ice-covered terrain.
|
|---|