Glaciological Reconnaissance of an Ice Core Drilling Site, Penny Ice Cap, Baffin Island

Abstract

AbstractA site situated close to the main divide of the Penny Ice Cap, Baffin Island was occupied in 1979 for the purpose of determining the suitability of this ice cap for providing proxy climatic data and other environmental time series for a span of 104 a. A 20 m core was extracted and analysed for stable oxygen isotopes, tritium concentration, pH, electrolytic conductivity, major ion concentrations, and particulate concentration. An adjacent dedicated shallow core was analysed for pollen content to determine if a significant seasonal variation in the pollen rain existed. From these measurements, and from the observations made on the stratigraphic character of the core, the mean net accumulation rate over the approximately 30 year period covered by the core is found to be about 0.43 m water equivalent per year. This is in agreement with a single value determined 26 years earlier at a nearby site (Ward and Baird, 1954). The mean annual temperature in the bore hole was found to be close to −14.4° C, possibly some 2–5 deg warmer than the expected mean annual surface air temperature at the site. This difference is due to the expulsion of latent heat upon freezing of melt water at depth in the snow-pack which gives rise to the many ice layers observed in the core. The percentage thickness of ice layers per year may be correlated with summer temperatures.Total ice depths were measured using a 620 MHz radar echo-sounder. In the vicinity of the divide, over an area of 1 km2, the ice depths vary from about 460 to 515 m. These values compare favourably with values determined from an airborne radar depth-sounding flight carried out over the ice cap by a joint U.S.–Danish mission operating out of Søndre Strømfjord, Greenland. The data suggest that the ice-cap divide would be a worthwhile location to deep core drill with an expected useful coverage of at least the Holocene period.