Technologies for retrieving sediment cores in Antarctic subglacial settings

Hodgson, D.A.; Bentley, M.J.; Smith, J.A.; Klepacki, J.; Makinson, K.; Smith, A.M.; Saw, K.; Scherer, R.; Powell, R.; Tulaczyk, S.; Rose, M.; Pearce, D.; Mowlem, M.; Keen, P.; Siegert, M.J.

doi:10.1098/rsta.2015.0056

Technologies for retrieving sediment cores in Antarctic subglacial settings

Hodgson, D.A.; Bentley, M.J.; Smith, J.A.; Klepacki, J.; Makinson, K.; Smith, A.M.; Saw, K.; Scherer, R.; Powell, R.; Tulaczyk, S.; Rose, M.; Pearce, D.; Mowlem, M.; Keen, P.; Siegert, M.J.

Authors

D.A. Hodgson

Professor Michael Bentley m.j.bentley@durham.ac.uk
Professor

J.A. Smith

J. Klepacki

K. Makinson

A.M. Smith

K. Saw

R. Scherer

R. Powell

S. Tulaczyk

M. Rose

D. Pearce

M. Mowlem

P. Keen

M.J. Siegert

Abstract

Accumulations of sediment beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet contain a range of physical and chemical proxies with the potential to document changes in ice sheet history and to identify and characterize life in subglacial settings. Retrieving subglacial sediments and sediment cores presents several unique challenges to existing technologies. This paper briefly reviews the history of sediment sampling in subglacial environments. It then outlines some of the technological challenges and constraints in developing the corers being used in sub-ice shelf settings (e.g. George VI Ice Shelf and Larsen Ice Shelf), under ice streams (e.g. Rutford Ice Stream), at or close to the grounding line (e.g. Whillans Ice Stream) and in subglacial lakes deep under the ice sheet (e.g. Lake Ellsworth). The key features of the corers designed to operate in each of these subglacial settings are described and illustrated together with comments on their deployment procedures.

Citation

Hodgson, D., Bentley, M., Smith, J., Klepacki, J., Makinson, K., Smith, A., …Siegert, M. (2016). Technologies for retrieving sediment cores in Antarctic subglacial settings. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 374(2059), Article 20150056. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2015.0056

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 17, 2015
Online Publication Date	Dec 14, 2015
Publication Date	Jan 1, 2016
Deposit Date	Mar 22, 2016
Publicly Available Date	Dec 14, 2016
Journal	Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.
Print ISSN	1364-503X
Electronic ISSN	1471-2962
Publisher	The Royal Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	374
Issue	2059
Article Number	20150056
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2015.0056