Visual Stratigraphy-Based Age Scale Developed for the Shallow Mount Siple Firn Core, Antarctica

Brown, Joseph W.; Moser, Dorothea E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9085-9713; Emanuelsson, Daniel B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9373-6951; Thomas, Elizabeth R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3010-6493. 2023 Visual Stratigraphy-Based Age Scale Developed for the Shallow Mount Siple Firn Core, Antarctica. Geosciences, 13 (3), 85. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences13030085

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/geosciences13030085

Abstract/Summary

Here we present a case study for using visual stratigraphy to date a shallow firn core from coastal West Antarctica. The Mount Siple ice core has the potential to reconstruct climate in this data-sparse region over recent decades. Line scanned images of the 24 m firn core were used to generate a grey-scale, which displays variability consistent with annual cycles. The resulting Mount Siple age scale spans from 1998 ± 1 to 2017 CE. This study demonstrates that the seasonal changes in the grey-scale record provide an independent method of dating firn cores. However, the presence of melt layers at this site has introduced an error of ±1 year. Visual line stratigraphy has the unique advantage over traditional annual layer counting, based on chemical or isotopic species, of being non-destructive and relatively inexpensive. Visual line stratigraphy has proved to be an effective dating method for this site.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences13030085
ISSN:	2076-3263
Additional Keywords:	Sub-Antarctic; Ice Cores; Melting; Visual Stratigraphy
Date made live:	21 Mar 2023 08:25 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/534246

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences13030085

ISSN:

2076-3263

Additional Keywords:

Sub-Antarctic; Ice Cores; Melting; Visual Stratigraphy

Date made live:

21 Mar 2023 08:25 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/534246