Collaborative Research: Initial Examination of the 500,000-year Climate Record at Mt. Moulton, West Antarctica

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This award supports a two year project to study a 600 meter thick, horizontally-exposed section of ice with intercalated tephra layers in the summit crater of Mt. Moulton, in West Antarctica. The tephra layers, which have been provisionally dated using the Argon-40/Argon-39 technique, range in age from 15,000 to 480,000 years old and are believed to be from a nearby volcano, Mt. Berlin. The objectives of this research are to revisit the Mt. Moulton blue ice site in order to undertake detailed sampling of the ice section and associated tephra layers. In addition to detailed study of the tephra layers (geochemical analysis and further dating of additional layers), the ice will be examined in order to determine climatic variations in West Antarctica over the last 500,000 years. This study will provide complimentary data for the proposed West Antarctic deep ice core and has the potential to yield a much longer climatic record.