COLDEX Oldest Ice Science Short Course

Learning Objectives from the 2023 course

Participants will be able to describe:

● General patterns of global climate, sea level, and greenhouse gas changes since the Pliocene,

and the longer term context of those changes with respect to Cenozoic geologic history.

● The geological and tectonic history of East Antarctica in deep time.

● The current configuration of the Antarctic ice sheet and its general history over the Cenozoic Era.

● The science and broader impacts goals of the COLDEX Science and Technology Center (STC).

Participants will understand and be able to explain:

● The reasons why extending the ice core record through and beyond the Mid Pleistocene Transition (MPT) are important.

● The primary proxies/measurements in ice core records that provide information about past climate and environmental change.

● The controls on the age structure of an ice sheet and what factors would lead to preservation of ice older than 800,000 years in the interior, and at the ice sheet margin.

● The use of ice penetrating radar, and also in combination with ice-flow models, to determine the structure and dynamics of the ice sheet.

● The use of gravity, magnetic and geothermal heat flow data to constrain the nature of the underlying crust.

● Apply knowledge gained to communicate key concepts about COLDEX science to different audiences.