Glaciological studies at Dome Concordia

Recovering a 1.5 million years record of climate and greenhouse gases from Antarctica is a major objective of the ice core community (associated in IPICS, International Partnerships in Ice Core Science) and there is an agreement that such Oldest Ice could be found in the plateau area of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The region around the permanent station of Concordia (East Antarctica) is among the few spots possible. The aim of this project is to improve our ability to detect regions where ice could be very old. The approach is based on the association of various types of observations and ice flow/thermal modelling.This combination will help to: Test our ability to predict the thermal type of ice-bed interface and infer geothermal heat flux ; Validate ice flow models ; Determine badly known characteristics such as the mechanical properties of ice in these very cold and slow regions. The new observations planned are essentially radar measurements and borehole logging. We will also take advantage of information obtained in the EPICA ice core. Because of this link with the EPICA ice core, this project also involves sampling of the EPICA archive left at Concordia and some management of the ice core storage.