Discontinuous Flow, Ice Texture, and Dirt Content in the Basal Layers of the Devon Island Ice Cap

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Abstract
Surface-to-bedrock cores obtained with a CRREL thermal drill were taken in 1972 and 1973 from the top of the Devon Island ice cap. There are very pronounced variations in oxygen isotope, micro-particle concentration, and ice texture in the lowermost 5 m of the core. There is a section of isotopically cold, very fine bubbly ice with high micro-particle concentrations between 2.6 and 4.4 m above the bed, considered to represent the Last Ice Age. There is coarse, isotopically warm, clean ice above and below this. For 1.2 m above the bed, the ice is finer again with high micro-particle concentrations but it shows very low bubble concentration and is isotopically the warmest in the core. While the broad variations are common to both cores, in detail there are significant variations despite the fact that the cores were taken only 27 m apart. The variations, when analysed statistically, show that at least 25–30% of the originally continuous profile is missing from each core. Faulting within the near-bedrock ice may be responsible for some of the effect but bubble fabric also gives evidence for irregular non-laminar flow. Because of the strong relationship between crystal size and micro-particle concentrations in the Devon Island cores, it is suggested that the fine-grained nature of dirty layers in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets is due to the effect of the dirt inclusions and not of shearing. Steep isotopic gradients in the Devon Island cores are shown to be evidence for possible shearing, which does not effect any change in the crystal texture. Clear ice near the bed is considered a tectonic feature, but the lack of effect on its bed by the ice cap confirms the non-erosional nature of an ice cap frozen to its bed. In terms of paleoclimatic history, it means that, because of bedrock effects, ice caps of intermediate depth (i.e. <400 m) can give continuous information only over the last approximate 5 000 years. Between 5 000 and 10 000 B.P. the time series becomes slightly discontinuous and beyond 10 000 B.P. so discontinuous as to allow only broad climatic inferences to be drawn.