General Information
These are VERY OLD buried ice deposits from the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. The Beacon Valley and Mullins Valley cores are not "typical" ice cores because of their high mixed ice/sediment content. The cores were collected during the 2004/05, 2006/07, 2008/09, and 2009/10 field seasons. Because of the high sediment content, most of the cores shouldn't be cut in the exam room. The cores were shipped directly from Antarctica to the NSF-ICF and have remained in the main archive freezer since. See the Beacon/Mullins Valley PDF document for additional information. There is also a spreadsheet listing the coordinates of the cores.
If you are interested in the cores, please contact the NSF-ICF Science Management Office.
Publications
- Grimm RE, Stillman DE and MacGregor JA (2015) Dielectric signatures and evolution of glacier ice. Journal of Glaciology, 61(230), 1159-1170. https://doi.org/10.3189/2015JoG15J113
- Kowalewski DE, Marchant DR, Swanger KM, Head JW (2011) Modeling vapor diffusion within cold and dry supraglacial tills of Antarctica: Implications for the preservation of ancient ice. Geomorphology, 126, 159-173. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2010.11.001
- Mackay SL and Marchant DR (2016) Dating buried glacier ice using cosmogenic 3He in surface clasts: Theory and application to Mullins Glacier, Antarctica. Quaternary Science Reviews, 140, 75-100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2016.03.013
- Mackay SL, Marchant DR, Lamp JL, Head JW (2014) Cold-based debris-covered glaciers: Evaluating their potential as climate archives through studies of ground-penetrating radar and surface morphology. Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface, 119, 2505–2540. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JF003178
- Swanger KM (2017) Buried ice in Kennar Valley: a late Pleistocene remnant of Taylor Glacier. Antarctic Science, 1–13. 31 January 2017. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102016000687