Dome F
Encyclopedia
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Queen Maud Land
Queen Maud Land is a c. 2.7 million-square-kilometre region of Antarctica claimed as a dependent territory by Norway. The territory lies between 20° west and 45° east, between the British Antarctic Territory to the west and the Australian Antarctic Territory to the east. The latitudinal...
at 77°30′S 37°30′E. With an altitude of 3,810 m or 12,500 ft above sea level, it is the second-highest summit or ice dome of the East Antarctic ice sheet
East Antarctic Ice Sheet
The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of two large ice sheets in Antarctica, and the largest on the entire planet. The EAIS lies between 45° West and 168° East longitudinally....
and represents an ice divide
Ice divide
An ice divide is the boundary on an ice sheet, ice cap or glacier separating opposing flow directions of ice, analogous to a water divide. Such ice divides are important for geochronology investigations using ice cores, because such coring is typically made on top of a dome of an ice sheet to avoid...
. Dome F is the site of Dome Fuji Station, a research station operated by Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
Discovery and naming
Dome F is an ice dome rising to about 3,700 m in eastern Queen Maud LandQueen Maud Land
Queen Maud Land is a c. 2.7 million-square-kilometre region of Antarctica claimed as a dependent territory by Norway. The territory lies between 20° west and 45° east, between the British Antarctic Territory to the west and the Australian Antarctic Territory to the east. The latitudinal...
. In 1963-64, a Soviet Antarctic Expedition
Soviet Antarctic Expedition
The Soviet Antarctic Expedition was part of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of the Soviet Committee on Antarctic Research of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR....
oversnow traverse crossed the north part of the dome at an elevation of over 3,600 meters.
The feature was delineated by the SPRI-NSF-TUD airborne radio-echo sounding
Radioglaciology
Radioglaciology is the study of glaciers and ice sheets using radar. It employs a geophysical method similar to ground-penetrating radar that operates at frequencies in the MF, HF and VHF portions of the radio spectrum...
program, 1967-79. It was named Valkyrie Dome after the Valkyrie
Valkyrie
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decides who dies in battle. Selecting among half of those who die in battle , the valkyries bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla, ruled over by the god Odin...
of Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
, who carried aloft those that had fallen in battle.
Environment
Owing to its location on the Antarctic plateau and the high elevation, Dome F is one of the coldest places on Earth. Temperatures rarely rise above -30°C in summer and can drop to -80°C in winter. The annual average air temperature is -54.3°C. The climate is that of a cold desert, with very dry conditions and an annual precipitation of about 25 millimeters of water equivalent, which falls entirely as snow.Dome Fuji Station
Dome Fuji Station (ドームふじ基地 Dōmu Fuji Kichi) was established as "Dome Fuji observation base" (ドームふじ観測拠点 Dōmu Fuji Kansoku Kyoten) in January 1995. Its name was changed to "Dome Fuji Station" on April 1, 2004. Located at 77°19′S 39°42′E, it is separated from Showa Station by about 1,000 km.Glaciology
Deep ice coreIce core
An ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet, most commonly from the polar ice caps of Antarctica, Greenland or from high mountain glaciers elsewhere. As the ice forms from the incremental build up of annual layers of snow, lower layers are older than upper, and an ice...
drilling at Dome F was started in August 1995, and in December 1996 a depth of 2503 m was reached. This first core covers a period back to 340,000 years.
The core quality from the Dome Fuji station, East Antarctica, is excellent even in the brittle zone from 500 to 860 m deep, where the ice is fragile during the 'in situ' core-cutting procedure.
A second deep core was started in 2003. Drilling was carried out during four subsequent austral summers from 2003/2004 until 2006/2007, and by then a depth of 3035.22 m was reached. The drill did not hit the bedrock, but rock particles and refrozen water have been found in the deepest ice, indicating that the bedrock is very close to the bottom of the borehole. This core greatly extends the climatic record of the first core, and, according to a first, preliminary dating, it reaches back until 720,000 years. The ice of the second Dome F core is therefore the second-oldest ice ever recovered, only outranged by the EPICA Dome C core.
See also
- Asuka Station (Antarctica)Asuka Station (Antarctica)The is a permanent Japanese Antarctic unmanned observation base. It is located on Queen Maud Land and was opened in 1985....
- Mizuho Station (Antarctica)Mizuho Station (Antarctica)The was a permanent Japanese Antarctic transshipment station. Located on Mizuho Plateau 2230 m above sea level, it was opened in 1970. It was operated by the Japanese National Institute of Polar Research, and closed in 1987. It is occasionally visited by some parties for meteorological and...
- Showa Station (Antarctica)
- Dome ADome ADome A or Dome Argus is an Antarctican plateau located 1200 kilometres inland. It is thought to be one of the coldest naturally occurring places on Earth, with temperatures believed to get close to . It is the highest ice feature in Antarctica, comprising a dome or eminence of 4,093 meters...
(also known as Dome Argus) - Dome CDome CDome C, also known as Dome Circe or Dome Charlie, located at Antarctica at an altitude of 3,233 m or 10,607 ft above sea level, is one of several summits or "domes" of the Antarctic Ice Sheet...
(also known as Dome Circe, Dome Charlie or Dome Concordia) - Concordia, Antarctica
- EPICAEPICAThe European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica is a multinational European project for deep ice core drilling in Antarctica. Its main objective is to obtain full documentation of the climatic and atmospheric record archived in Antarctic ice by drilling and analyzing two ice cores and comparing...
- Vostok StationVostok StationVostok Station was a Russian Antarctic research station. It was at the southern Pole of Cold, with the lowest reliably measured natural temperature on Earth of −89.2 °C . Research includes ice core drilling and magnetometry...
- Climate of AntarcticaClimate of AntarcticaThe climate of Antarctica is the coldest on the whole of Earth. Antarctica has the lowest naturally occurring temperature ever recorded on the ground on Earth: −89.2 °C at Vostok Station. It is also extremely dry , averaging 166 mm of precipitation per year...
- East Antarctica RangesEast Antarctica RangesThe East Antarctica Ranges are one of the three largest mountain ranges in Antarctica, the others are the Transantarctic Mountains and West Antarctica Ranges. The East Antarctica Ranges, located on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, have 29 known peaks whose summits reach or exceed 2000 meters above sea...
- East Antarctic two-thousandersEast Antarctic two-thousandersThe three largest mountain ranges in Antarctica are the Transantarctic Mountains, the West Antarctica Ranges, and the East Antarctica Ranges. The East Antarctica Ranges, located on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, have 29 known peaks whose summits reach or exceed 2000 meters above sea level. These...
External links
- Dome Fuji Deep Ice Coring Project
- Dome Fuji page of the World Data Center (WDC) for Paleoclimatology, contains downloadable data for the first core
- National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, Japan
- Institute of Low Temperature Science, Sapporo, Japan
- COMNAP Antarctic Facilities
- COMNAP Antarctic Facilities Map