Ice-penetrating radar internal stratigraphy over Dome C and the wider East Antarctic Plateau

Abstract: The data set published here
consists of 26 ice-penetrating radar IRHs (internal reflecting horizons) which
were traced across multiple ice-penetrating radar surveys that deployed several
generations of modern ice-penetrating radar sounders over a decade, between
2008 and 2018, over the Dome C region of the East Antarctic Plateau. The data
set is associated to ESSD publication: Cavitte et al., ESSD <to be completed
after publication>.

We can subdivide the radar sounders used into three sets. The primary set was
collected by the University of Texas at Austin Institute for Geophysics (UTIG)
and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) as part of the ICECAP project)
between 2008 and 2015. This includes the Oldest Ice candidate A (OIA) survey
flown by ICECAP in January 2016. Data were collected with the High Capacity
Airborne Radar Sounder (HiCARS) 1 & 2 and its Multifrequency Airborne
Radar-sounder for Full-phase Assessment (MARFA) descendant. The data was
collected from a DC-3T Basler which operated from Concordia Station.

The second set consists of the Vostok-Dome C airborne radar transect was flown
by the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) at the University of
Kansas using the Multi-Channel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder (MCoRDS) in a
single flight line in 2013. A P-3 Orion operating from McMurdo Station
collected these data as part of NASA Operation Ice Bridge.

The third set consists of a subset of the LDC ground-based radar survey, towed
behind a PistenBully PB300 tractor, collected by the Beyond EPICA - Oldest Ice
(BE-OI) European Consortium using the British Antarctic Survey’s (BAS) Deep
Looking Radio Echo Sounder (DELORES) radar system.

Each IRH has been traced in all three radar sets and is published here as a
single csv and netcdf file. Formats are self-documented in these csv/netcdf
files.

Where HiCARS and MCoRDS radar transects are used, the IRH is provided at a 1 km
spatial resolution, where DELORES radar transects are used, the IRH is provided
at a 250 m spatial resolution.

The 26 IRHs published here were traced semi-automatically by first author Marie
Cavitte, using Landmark's Decision Space Desktop software and its built-in
picker.

The IRHs are dated at the EDC ice core using the AICC2012 timescale (Veres et
al., 2013; Bazin et al., 2013)

Ice core ages are transferred onto the IRHs on radar transect MCM/JKB1a/EDMC01a
at distance = 110.153 m along the transect.

Depth and age uncertainties associated to each IRH are quantified in the
associated ESSD publication: Cavitte et al., ESSD <to be completed after
publication>.

Besides NSF this dataset is the result of additional support from NERC grant -
NE/D003733/1, NASA grants - NNX08AN68G, NNX09AR52G, NNX11AD33G, NNX13AD53A, and
funding from the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation.