EXPLORING AEROSOL SALT CONCENTRATIONS AS A DATING TECHNIQUE IN VERNIER VALLEY, ANTARCTICA

We will analyze salt content in sediment samples from Vernier Valley, Antarctica to advance understanding of salt concentration as a dating technique. The hyperarid polar conditions of Vernier Valley, a part of the McMurdo Dry Valley region, have the unique ability to preserve aerosol salts due to the area’s low temperatures and limited precipitation. In the 2022 field season, samples were collected from the ice front through a sequence of four moraines; samples span “clean” ice, “dirty” ice, moraine till, and colluvium beyond the glacial limit. Through ICP-OES and ion chromatography, we will analyze the elemental composition of each sample, focusing on salt concentration as a proxy for age estimate. Previous work (Graly et al., 2018) found a linear relationship between salt content and cosmogenic nuclide ages dating back 500,000 years. Our research aims to test this method on a longer time scale, comparing salt-based ages to ages found by Staiger et al. (2006), who dated the moraine sequence with cosmogenic nuclides and found ages ranging from modern to 4 million years old. We also aim to further Graly et al.’s work by identifying the baseline levels of salt concentrations in Antarctic ice.