7 year oxygen isotope results from samples taken on Antarctic Plateau traverse, 1984

Brief description

A total of nine stations were sampled for oxygen isotopes during the 1984 spring traverse to the Antarctic Plateau. The aim of this program was to take a number of samples from a core or a pit, at stations of known accumulation over a particular period, to see how far inland the annual cycles could accurately be traced. The samples were not taken at ice movement stations, but at canes each 2km along the line, to avoid sampling the accumulation, and thus isotope disturbance resulting from parking the vans beside the IMS poles in 1978 and 1979.

The accumulation for the cane at each sampled station was calculated for the six years since 1978, and the total multiplied by 7/6 to give the sampling depth required to cover 7 years. Seventy samples were taken at each station, i.e. approximately 10 per year. At most stations a PICO drill was used to obtain a core, and the samples cut with a stainless steel knife on the stainless sink in the living van. At the southern end of the line where the accumulation is much lower, the samples were taken from the wall of a pit, as the small length of core for each sample did not provide enough melt. The snow was sampled in the pits by sliding a flat sheet of galvanized iron into the snow at each interval starting at the top, and scraping the snow above this into a melt jar. Isotopic contamination of samples from both these methods should be negligible. All samples were melted in plastic jars, and then transferred into 5Oml plastic bottles. A total of 630 samples from 9 stations were returned to Australia for oxygen isotope analysis, carried out in Melbourne by Ted Vishart, Dick Marriot, and Gao Xiangqun.

The station/cane labels for the sample sites were:

A028
V140/4 (near GC30)
V230/4 (near GC37)
V270/1 (near GC38)
V300/1 (near GC39)
V350/1 (near GC40)
V400/1 (near GC41)
V450/1 (near GC42)
V630/1 (near GC47)

The columns in the spreadsheet are:

Sequence Number
Core depth (metres)
Oxygen isotope value (the number is a ratio of O18 per ml of O16, expressed as a percentage (but as parts per 1000 instead of 100))