Abstract
Abstract. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet contains a wealth of information that can be extracted from its internal architecture such as distribution of age, past flow features, and surface and basal properties. Airborne radar surveys can sample this stratigraphic archive across broad areas. Here, we identify and trace key horizons across several radar surveys to obtain the stratigraphic information. We transfer the age–depth scales from ice cores to intersecting radar data. We then propagate these age scales across the ice sheet using the high fidelity continuity of the radar horizons. In Dronning Maud Land, including Dome Fuji, we mapped isochrones with ages of 38 and 74 ka. In the central region of East Antarctica around Dome Concordia, Vostok and Dome Argus, we use isochrone ages of 38, 48, 90 and 161 ka. Taking together both regions, we provide isochrone depths traced along a combined profile length of more than 40 000 km and discuss uncertainties of the obtained stratigraphy, as well as factors important to consider for further expansion. This data set is the most extensive distribution of internal horizons in East Antarctica to date. The isochrone depths presented in this study are available on PANGAEA (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.895528; Winter et al., 2018).
Highlights
The internal stratigraphy of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) provides information about both the climate archive contained within the ice as well as the dynamic history of the ice sheet
Starting from EDC, four internal reflection horizons (IRHs) were continuously traceable along the central profile in the CEA region, connecting EDC, Vostok and Dome Argus (DA) (Fig. 2a)
We provide an age–depth stratigraphy of two separate regions of the EAIS
Summary
The internal stratigraphy of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) provides information about both the climate archive contained within the ice as well as the dynamic history of the ice sheet. Mapping of radar-detected horizons increases confidence that layering at those depths is undisturbed and facilitates age extrapolation of the maximum expected age at the coring location (Fischer et al, 2013; Parrenin et al, 2017). These uses of stratigraphic information for future drill-site selection are strongly exploited in the currently running reconnaissance studies for the International Partnership in Ice Core Sciences (IPICS) Oldest Ice target, aiming at the retrieval of a continuous 1.5 Myr old ice-core record
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