Collaborative Research: Exploring A 2 Million + Year Ice Climate Archive-Allan Hills Blue Ice Area (2MBIA)

该奖项支持一个项目，该项目为Allan Hills Blue Ice Area(BIA)生成绝对时间刻度，然后重建过去气候变化的细节和某些时间段的温室气体浓度，回到2.5 Ma。冰龄将通过应用新兴的方法来确定被困气泡的绝对和相对年龄(基于Argon-40/Argon-38、O2的增量-18O和O2/N2比率)。为了证明Allan Hills BIAS作为古气候档案的潜力，将收集对应于110-140 ka、1 Ma和2.5 Ma的年龄间隔的海沟和冰芯。在拟议的两个野外季节期间，将把总共6x100米的岩芯和另外15米的岩芯与挖沟结合起来。拟议活动的学术价值在于，这项工作的结果将扩展EPICA的里程碑式工作和其他深冰芯工作，这些工作提供了0.8 Ma以来的记录，并将补充IPICS计划的钻探延伸至1.5 Ma的连续南极冰芯的工作。这些结果将有助于加深对发生在0-2.5 Ma之间的主要气候机制和转变的理解，包括40KYR世界和中更新世气候转变。一项主要的长期科学目标是，通过在阿兰山生物信息学研究所建立一个“国际气候公园”，为收集古气候记录提供一种变革性的方法，这将使任何感兴趣的美国或外国研究人员能够对大量已知的冰层进行采样，最早可达2.5 Ma。拟议活动产生的更广泛影响包括培训精通高级野外、实验室和数值模拟方法的学生，这些方法结合了地球化学、冰川学和古气候学。我们将把与我们拟议的研究相关的材料纳入我们正在进行的当地教育工作和媒体宣传工作中。缅因州大学已经拥有网络基础设施，使用最先进的基于网络的技术，这可以为广泛的科学家社区提供快速访问我们的研究结果。这项工作将有助于广泛的气候变化研究，这些研究正在向全世界提供关于自然和人为强迫气候变化的理解以及应对方案。这一奖项在南极洲进行了实地考察。

This award supports a project to generate an absolute timescale for the Allan Hills Blue Ice Area (BIA), and then to reconstruct details of past climate changes and greenhouse gas concentrations for certain time periods back to 2.5 Ma. Ice ages will be determined by applying emerging methods for absolute and relative dating of trapped air bubbles (based on Argon-40/Argon-38, delta-18O of O2, and the O2/N2 ratio). To demonstrate the potential of the Allan Hills BIAs as a paleoclimate archive trenches and ice cores will be collected for age intervals corresponding to 110-140 ka, 1 Ma, and 2.5 Ma. During the proposed two field seasons a total of 6x100 m and additional 15 m cores will be combined with trenching. The intellectual merit of the proposed activity is that the results of this work will extend the landmark work of EPICA and other deep ice coring efforts, which give records dating back to 0.8 Ma, and will complement work planned by IPICS to drill a continuous Antarctic ice core extending to 1.5 Ma. The results will help to advance understanding of major climate regimes and transitions that took place between 0-2.5 Ma, including the 40 kyr world and the mid-Pleistocene climate transition. A major long-term scientific goal is to provide a transformative approach to the collection of paleoclimate records by establishing an "International Climate Park" in the Allan Hills BIA that would enable sampling of large quantities of known age ice as old as 2.5 Ma, by any interested American or foreign investigator. The broader impacts resulting from the proposed activity include training students who are well versed in advanced field, laboratory and numerical modeling methods combining geochemistry, glaciology, and paleoclimatology. We will include material relevant to our proposed research in our ongoing efforts in local education and in our outreach efforts for media. The University of Maine already has cyberinfrastructure, using state of the art web-based technology, which can provide a wide community of scientists with fast access to the results of our research. The work will contribute to the broad array of climate change studies that is informing worldwide understanding of natural and anthropogenic forced climate change, and the options for responding. This award has field work in Antarctica.