MAPPING OF BURIED ICE MASSES; TRANSANTARCTIC MOUNTAINS, ANTARCTICA

Glacial ice can yield information on paleoclimate, paleo atmosphere, and ancient organisms. Throughout the Transantarctic Mountain Range, a minimal number of buried ice masses have been discovered which have the potential to exceed the ages of most glaciers. These ice masses are buried underneath <1 m of till which thermally shields them and limits sublimation thus preserving the ice. An example of such is found in Ong Valley, Antarctica with sublimation till at >1.1 Ma years old, consequently making it one of the oldest known ice masses on Earth.

In addition to a few known locations, no systematic effort has been made to map such ice masses in Antarctica. This research is motivated by the potential trove of paleoproxies harbored in these ancient ice masses.

We use remotely sensed imagery (World View) to identify locations for these buried ice masses. The imagery consists of four spectral bands in the blue, red, green, and near-infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum with sub-meter spatial resolution. The visual detection of landforms associated with buried ice masses combined with digital elevation model allows us to uniquely identify potential sites. To develop and refine our technique we used Ong Valley, Antarctica for ground truthing combined with a new probable site to confirm this process (164.709, -84.377 decimal degrees).

To date, we have visually detected five potential sites out of 1000 images. A total of over 8000 images throughout the entire Transantarctic Mountain range will eventually be analyzed. These sites are potential areas for future field work to confirm existence of buried ice masses. We expect to find a small number of the buried ice masses which will allow us to study the spatial and elevation patterns. This project has the potential to extend the glacial paleoclimate archive to further back in time, increase our understanding of the ice-sheet fluctuations, and aid in future climate predictions.