New ice cores retrieved from the Taylor Glacier (Antarctica) blue ice area contain ice and air spanning the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5-4 transition, a period of global cooling and ice sheet expansion. We determine chronologies for the ice and air bubbles in the new ice cores by visually matching variations in gas-and ice-phase tracers to pre-existing ice core records. The chronologies reveal an ice age-gas age difference (1 age) approaching 10 ka during MIS 4, implying very low snow accumulation in the Taylor Glacier accumulation zone. A revised chronology for the analogous section of the Taylor Dome ice core (84 to 55 ka), located to the south of the Taylor Glacier accumulation zone, shows that 1 age did not exceed 3 ka. The difference in 1 age between the two records during MIS 4 is similar in magnitude but opposite in direction to what is observed at the Last Glacial Maximum. This relationship implies that a spatial gradient in snow accumulation existed across the Taylor Dome region during MIS 4 that was oriented in the opposite direction of the accumulation gradient during the Last Glacial Maximum.
1.Oregon State Univ, Coll Earth Ocean & Atmospher Sci, Corvallis, OR 97331 USA 2.Univ Calif San Diego, Scripps Inst Oceanog, La Jolla, CA 92037 USA 3.Univ Rochester, Dept Earth & Environm Sci, Rochester, NY 14627 USA 4.Desert Res Inst, Div Hydrol Sci, Reno, NV 89512 USA 5.Univ Cambridge, Dept Earth Sci, Cambridge CB2 3EQ, England 6.British Antarctic Survey, Madingley Rd, Cambridge CB3 0ET, England 7.Univ Bern, Climate & Environm Phys, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland 8.Univ Wisconsin, Dept Geosci, Madison, WI 53706 USA 9.Cardiff Univ, Sch Earth & Ocean Sci, Cardiff CF10 3AT, S Glam, Wales
Recommended Citation:
Menking, James A.,Brook, Edward J.,Shackleton, Sarah A.,et al. Spatial pattern of accumulation at Taylor Dome during Marine Isotope Stage 4: stratigraphic constraints from Taylor Glacier[J]. CLIMATE OF THE PAST,2019-01-01,15(4):1537-1556