From May to June 2008, we spent three weeks at the saddle of Mt. Aurora, Alaska, to drill an ice core from the upper part of Black Rapids Glacier. This drilling project aims to reconstruct climatic and environmental conditions with various temporal and spatial scales. Our interests include changing climate in the North Pacific, material transport from Asia to North America, and history of forest fire in Alaska. After drilling for two weeks, we obtained a 180 m long beautiful ice core and ice temperature profile in the borehole. Besides the deep ice coring, radio-echo soundings, ice flow speed measurements, surface elevation survey, aerosol sampling and shallow ice core drilling were completed. This field campaign was operated under the collaboration of Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto, Institute of Low Temperature Science in Sapporo, Nagoya University and University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Publications
- Fukuda, T., S. Sugiyama, S., S. Matoba and T. Shiraiwa. 2011. Glacier flow measurement and radio-echo sounding at Aurora
Peak, Alaska in 2008. Annals of Glaciology,
52(58), 138-142.
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