Project Description

The primary goal of the proposed research is to develop unique, exactly co-registered, high-depth-resolution measurements of a broad range of elements, isotopes, and chemical species for the entire depth of the ~3300 m WAIS Divide ice core (bedrock core) and two nearby, intermediate-depth cores. These measurements will be used to address critical environmental, paleoclimate, and ice sheet dynamics questions. These include evaluation of annual layer thickness variations over the depth of the bedrock core, whether concentrations and fluxes of seawater and crustal dust tracers have varied over the depth of the bedrock core, how fallout from industrial pollution and volcanism has affected geochemical cycles recorded in the snow and firn at WAIS Divide, and whether fluxes of total and bio-available Fe have changed during the past ~200,000 years.