scholarly journals Annual layering in the NGRIP ice core during the Eemian

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 749-773 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Svensson ◽  
M. Bigler ◽  
E. Kettner ◽  
D. Dahl-Jensen ◽  
S. Johnsen ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Greenland NGRIP ice core continuously covers the period from present day back to 123 ka before present, which includes several thousand years of ice from the previous interglacial period, MIS 5e or the Eemian. In the glacial part of the core annual layers can be identified from impurity records and visual stratigraphy, and stratigraphic layer counting has been performed back to 60 ka. In the deepest part of the core, however, the ice is close to the pressure melting point, the visual stratigraphy is dominated by crystal boundaries, and annual layering is not visible to the naked eye. In this study, we apply a newly developed setup for high-resolution ice core impurity analysis to produce continuous records of dust, sodium and ammonium concentrations as well as conductivity of melt water. We analyzed three 2.2 m sections of ice from the Eemian and the glacial inception. In all of the analyzed ice, annual layers can clearly be recognized, most prominently in the dust and conductivity profiles. Part of the samples is, however, contaminated in dust, most likely from drill liquid. It is interesting that the annual layering is preserved despite a very active crystal growth and grain boundary migration in the deep and warm NGRIP ice. Based on annual layer counting of the new records, we determine a mean annual layer thickness close to 11 mm for all three sections, which, to first order, confirms the modeled NGRIP time scale (ss09sea). The counting does, however, suggest a longer duration of the climatically warmest part of the NGRIP record (MIS5e) of up to 1 ka as compared to the model estimate. Our results suggest that stratigraphic layer counting is possible basically throughout the entire NGRIP ice core provided sufficiently highly-resolved profiles become available.

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1427-1437 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Svensson ◽  
M. Bigler ◽  
E. Kettner ◽  
D. Dahl-Jensen ◽  
S. Johnsen ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Greenland NGRIP ice core continuously covers the period from present day back to 123 ka before present, which includes several thousand years of ice from the previous interglacial period, MIS 5e or the Eemian. In the glacial part of the core, annual layers can be identified from impurity records and visual stratigraphy, and stratigraphic layer counting has been performed back to 60 ka. In the deepest part of the core, however, the ice is close to the pressure melting point, the visual stratigraphy is dominated by crystal boundaries, and annual layering is not visible to the naked eye. In this study, we apply a newly developed setup for high-resolution ice core impurity analysis to produce continuous records of dust, sodium and ammonium concentrations as well as conductivity of melt water. We analyzed three 2.2 m sections of ice from the Eemian and the glacial inception. In all of the analyzed ice, annual layers can clearly be recognized, most prominently in the dust and conductivity profiles. Part of the samples is, however, contaminated in dust, most likely from drill liquid. It is interesting that the annual layering is preserved despite a very active crystal growth and grain boundary migration in the deep and warm NGRIP ice. Based on annual layer counting of the new records, we determine a mean annual layer thickness close to 11 mm for all three sections, which, to first order, confirms the modeled NGRIP time scale (ss09sea). The counting does, however, suggest a longer duration of the climatically warmest part of the NGRIP record (MIS5e) of up to 1 ka as compared to the model estimate. Our results suggest that stratigraphic layer counting is possible basically throughout the entire NGRIP ice core, provided sufficiently highly-resolved profiles become available.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theo Jenk ◽  
Daniela Festi ◽  
Margit Schwikowski ◽  
Valter Maggi ◽  
Klaus Oeggl

<p>Dating glaciers is an arduous yet essential task in ice core studies, which becomes even more challenging for the dating of glaciers suffering from mass loss in the accumulation zone as result of climate warming. In this context, we present the dating of a 46 m deep ice core from the Central Italian Alps retrieved in 2016 from the Adamello glacier (Pian di Neve, 3100 m a.s.l.). We will show how the timescale for the core could be obtained by integrating results from the analyses of the radionuclides <sup>210</sup>Pb and <sup>137</sup>Cs with annual layer counting derived from pollen and refractory black carbon concentrations. Our results clearly indicate that the surface of the glacier is older than the drilling date of 2016 by about 20 years and that the 46 m ice core reaches back to around 1944. Despite the severe mass loss affecting this glacier even in the accumulation zone, we show that it is possible to obtain a reliable timescale for such a temperate glacier. These results are very encouraging and open new perspectives on the potential of such glaciers as informative palaeoarchives. We thus consider it important to present our dating approach to a broader audience.</p>


2014 ◽  
Vol 60 (221) ◽  
pp. 463-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix NG ◽  
T.H. Jacka

AbstractIn the deep ice cores drilled at the GRIP, NGRIP and GISP2 sites in Greenland and at Byrd Station and the summit of Law Dome in Antarctica, the mean crystal size increases with depth in the shallow subsurface and reaches steady values at intermediate depth. This behaviour has been attributed to the competition between grain-boundary migration driven crystal growth and crystal polygonization, but the effects of changing crystal dislocation density and non-equiaxed crystal shape in this competition are uncertain. We study these effects with a simple model. It describes how the mean height and width of crystals evolve as they flatten under vertical compression, and as crystal growth and polygonization compete. The polygonization rate is assumed to be proportional to the mean dislocation density across crystals. Migration recrystallization, which can affect crystal growth via strain-induced grain boundary migration but whose impact on the mean crystal size is difficult to quantify for ice at present, is not accounted for. When applied to the five ice-core sites, the model simulates the observed crystal-size profiles well down to the bottom of their steady regions, although the match for Law Dome is less satisfactory. Polygonization rate factors retrieved for the sites range from 10–5 to 10–2 a–1. We conclude that since crystal size and dislocation density evolve in a strongly coupled manner, consistent modelling requires multiple differential equations to track both of these variables. Future ice-core analysis should also determine crystal size in all three principal directions.


2004 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 49-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Placidi ◽  
Sérgio H. Faria ◽  
Kolumban Hutter

AbstractWe outline how to incorporate microscale effects of polycrystalline ice into a continuum description. Actually, analyses of ice cores in Antarctica show that different microstructures generally produce different responses, i.e. a non-uniform distribution of c axes gives rise to anisotropic behaviour. It has been recognized that, to describe certain microstructural processes, like recrystallization or polygonization, we need a parameter able to switch them on (e.g. dislocation density or its associated lattice distortion energy). With this in mind, balance equations for a continuum theory of an anisotropic ice sheet undergoing recrystallization have been recently proposed. In this work, we examine relations for some constitutive quantities, in order to take into account the effects of grain-boundary migration, nucleation and polygonization. We check our assumptions by explicit comparison with the first 1200 m of the Byrd (Antarctica) ice core. Current literature usually gives a relation between normal grain growth and grain boundary migration rate. Here, an equation for normal grain growth which also incorporates the influence of polygonization is suggested. It is based on experimental data from the same core in Antarctica. Polygonization is a microscopic process, but here we present a continuum description of the bending stresses which promote the fragmentation of crystallites in terms of the theory of mixtures with continuous diversity.


Minerals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 892
Author(s):  
Daeyeong Kim ◽  
David J. Prior ◽  
Yeongcheol Han ◽  
Chao Qi ◽  
Hyangsun Han ◽  
...  

We investigated the microstructures of five ice core samples from the Styx Glacier, northern Victoria Land, Antarctica. Evidence of dynamic recrystallization was found in all samples: those at 50 m mainly by polygonization, and those at 170 m, largely by grain boundary migration. Crystallographic preferred orientations of all analyzed samples (view from the surface) typically showed a single cluster of c-axes normal to the surface. A girdle intersecting the single cluster occurs at 140–170 m with a tight cluster of a-axes normal to the girdle. We interpret the change of crystallographic preferred orientations (CPOs) at <140 m as relating to a combination of vertical compression, and shear on a horizontal plane, and the girdle CPOs at depths >140 m, as the result of horizontal extension. Based on the data obtained from the ground penetrating radar, the underlying bedrock topography of a nunatak could have generated the extensional stress regime in the study area. The results imply changeable stress regimes that may occur during burial as a result of external kinematic controls, such as an appearance of a small peak in the bedrock.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rilee E. Thomas ◽  
Marianne Negrini ◽  
David J. Prior ◽  
Robert Mulvaney ◽  
Holly Still ◽  
...  

A 58 m long azimuthally oriented ice core has been collected from the floating lateral sinistral shear margin of the lower Priestley Glacier, Terra Nova Bay, Antarctica. The crystallographic preferred orientations (CPO) and microstructures are described in order to correlate the geometry of anisotropy with constrained large-scale kinematics. Cryogenic Electron Backscatter Diffraction analysis shows a very strong fabric (c-axis primary eigenvalue ∼0.9) with c-axes aligned horizontally sub-perpendicular to flow, rotating nearly 40° clockwise (looking down) to the pole to shear throughout the core. The c-axis maximum is sub-perpendicular to vertical layers, with the pole to layering always clockwise of the c-axes. Priestley ice microstructures are defined by largely sub-polygonal grains and constant mean grain sizes with depth. Grain long axis shape preferred orientations (SPO) are almost always 1–20° clockwise of the c-axis maximum. A minor proportion of “oddly” oriented grains that are distinct from the main c-axis maximum, are present in some samples. These have horizontal c-axes rotated clockwise from the primary c-axis maximum and may define a weaker secondary maximum up to 30° clockwise of the primary maximum. Intragranular misorientations are measured along the core, and although the statistics are weak, this could suggest recrystallization by subgrain rotation to occur. These microstructures suggest subgrain rotation (SGR) and recrystallization by grain boundary migration recrystallization (GBM) are active in the Priestley Glacier shear margin. Vorticity analysis based on intragranular distortion indicates a vertical axis of rotation in the shear margin. The variability in c-axis maximum orientation with depth indicates the structural heterogeneity of the Priestley Glacier shear margin occurs at the meter to tens of meters scale. We suggest that CPO rotations could relate to rigid rotation of blocks of ice within the glacial shear margin. Rotation either post-dates CPO and SPO development or is occurring faster than CPO evolution can respond to a change in kinematics.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Festi ◽  
Margit Schwikowski ◽  
Valter Maggi ◽  
Klaus Oeggl ◽  
Theo Manuel Jenk

Abstract. Dating glaciers is an arduous yet essential task in ice core studies, which becomes even more challenging when dating glaciers suffering from mass loss in the accumulation zone as result of climate warming. In this context, we dated a 46 m deep ice core from the Central Italian Alps retrieved in 2016 from the Adamello glacier in the locality Pian di Neve (3100 m a.s.l.). Here we present a timescale for the core obtained by integrating results from the analyses of the radionuclides 210Pb and 137Cs with annual layer counting derived from pollen and refractory black carbon concentrations. Our results clearly indicate that the surface of the glacier is older than the drilling date of 2016 by about 20 years and that the 46 m ice core reaches back to around 1944. Despite the severe mass loss affecting this glacier even in the accumulation zone, we show that it is possible to obtain a reliable timescale for such a temperate glacier. Our results are therefore very encouraging and open new perspectives on the potential of such glaciers as informative palaeoarchives.


Author(s):  
D. B. Williams ◽  
A. D. Romig

The segregation of solute or imparity elements to grain boundaries can occur by three well-defined processes. The first is Gibbsian segregation in which an element of minimal matrix solubility confines itself to a monolayer at the grain boundary. Classical examples include Bi in Cu and S or P in Fe. The second process involves the depletion of excess matrix solute by volume diffusion to the boundary. In the boundary, the solute atoms diffuse rapidly to precipitates, causing them to grow by the ‘collector-plate mechanism.’ Such grain boundary diffusion is thought to initiate “Diffusion-Induced Grain Boundary Migration,” (DIGM). This process has been proposed as the origin of eutectoid transformations or discontinuous grain boundary reactions. The third segregation process is non-equilibrium segregation which result in a solute build-up around the boundary because of solute-vacancy interactions.All of these segregation phenomena usually occur on a sub-micron scale and are often affected by the nature of the grain boundary (misorientation, defect structure, boundary plane).


Author(s):  
K. Vasudevan ◽  
H. P. Kao ◽  
C. R. Brooks ◽  
E. E. Stansbury

The Ni4Mo alloy has a short-range ordered fee structure (α) above 868°C, but transforms below this temperature to an ordered bet structure (β) by rearrangement of atoms on the fee lattice. The disordered α, retained by rapid cooling, can be ordered by appropriate aging below 868°C. Initially, very fine β domains in six different but crystallographically related variants form and grow in size on further aging. However, in the temperature range 600-775°C, a coarsening reaction begins at the former α grain boundaries and the alloy also coarsens by this mechanism. The purpose of this paper is to report on TEM observations showing the characteristics of this grain boundary reaction.


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