Scientific history, sampling approach, and physical characterization of the Camp Century subglacial material, a rare archive from beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet

Abstract

Basal materials in ice cores hold information about paleoclimate conditions, glacial processes, and the timing of past ice-free intervals, all of which aid understanding of ice sheet stability and its contribution to sea level rise in a warming climate. Only a few cores have been drilled through ice sheets into the underlying sediment and bedrock, producing limited material for analysis. The last of three Camp Century ice cores, which the U.S. Army collected in northwestern Greenland from 1963–1966 CE, recovered about 3.5 m of subglacial material, including ice and sediment. Here, we document the scientific history of the Camp Century subglacial material. We present our recent core-cutting, sub-sampling, and processing methodology and results for this unique archive. In 1972 CE, curators at the Buffalo, New York, Ice Core Laboratory cut the original core sections into 32 segments that were each about 10 cm long. Since then, two segments were lost and are unaccounted for, two were thawed, and two were cut as pilot samples in 2019 CE. Except for the two thawed segments, the rest of the extant core has remained frozen since collection. In 2021 CE, we documented, described, and then cut each of the remaining frozen archived segments (n=26). We saved an archival half and cut the working half into eight oriented sub-samples under controlled temperature and light conditions for physical, geochemical, isotopic, sedimentological, magnetic, and biological analyses. Our approach was designed to maximize sample usage for multiproxy analysis, minimize contamination, and preserve archive material for future analyses of this legacy subglacial material. Grain size, bulk density, sedimentary features, magnetic susceptibility, and ice content, as well as pore ice pH and conductivity, suggest that the basal sediment contains five stratigraphic units. We interpret these stratigraphic units as representing different depositional environments in subglacial or ice-free conditions: from bottom to top, a diamicton with subhorizontal ice lenses (Unit 1), vertically fractured ice with dispersed fine-grained sediments (<20 % in mass) (Unit 2), a normally graded bed of pebbles to very fine sand in an icy matrix (Unit 3), bedded very fine to fine sand (Unit 4), and stratified medium to coarse sand (Unit 5). Plant macrofossils are present in all samples and are most abundant in Units 3 and 4; insect remains are present in some samples (Units 1, 3, and 5). Our approach provides a working template for future studies of ice core basal materials because it includes intentional planning of core sub-sampling, processing methodologies, and archiving strategies to optimize the collection of paleoclimate, glacial process, geochemical, geochronological, and sediment properties from archives of limited size. Our work benefited from a carefully curated and preserved archive, allowing the application of analytical techniques not available in 1966 CE. Preserving uncontaminated core material for future analyses that use currently unavailable tools and techniques is an important consideration for rare archive materials such as these from Camp Century.