Study on the ice sheet dynamics and its environmental changes of the East Antarctica

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project was designed as a comprehensive interdisciplinary field and laboratory research effort to systematically investigate the ice sheet dynamics and past climatic changes of the Mizuho Plateau, East Antarctica. Three of the major goals of this project were analysing a 700m deep Mizuho ice core, mapping the thickness and he subsurface topography of the ice sheet and measuring the surface velocity of the ice sheet. The results obtained are as follows.1. Oxygen-18 analyses of the Mizuho ice core reveal that ^<18>o concentration increases with decreasing depth above 150m depth. This fact suggests the lowering of the ice sheets surface.2.The results of microparticle analysis of ice core suggest that there was a big environmental change several thousands years ago.3. The radio echo sounding survey shows that the ice is melting on the bedrock at the large part of the Mizuho Plateau.4. The thinning of ice sheet at the rate of 1 m/a was observed over the down stream area of the Mizuho Plateau by the satellite navigation system.These facts suggest that the Mizuho Plateau, East Antarctica is in unstable condition of catastrophic advance due to basal sliding of ice sheet and the basal sliding of the ice sheet extends to the whole area down stream the Shirase Glacier drainage basin.