Dome Fuji (ドームふじ ''Dōmu Fuji''), also called Dome F or Valkyrie Dome, is an Antarctic base located in the eastern part of

Queen Maud Land Queen Maud Land () is a roughly region of Antarctica Territorial claims in Antarctica, claimed by Norway as a dependent territory. It borders the claimed British Antarctic Territory 20th meridian west, 20° west, specifically the Caird Coast, ...

. With an altitude of above sea level, it is the second-highest summit or ''ice dome'' of the

East Antarctic Ice Sheet The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) lies between 45th meridian west, 45° west and 168th meridian east, 168° east longitudinally. It was first formed around 34 million years ago, and it is the largest ice sheet on the entire planet, with far gre ...

and represents an

ice divide An ice divide is the boundary on an ice sheet, ice cap or glacier separating opposite flow directions of ice, analogous to a water divide. Ice divides are important for geochronological investigations that use ice cores, since such coring is typic ...

. Dome F is the site of Dome Fuji Station, a research station operated by

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Discovery and naming

Dome Fuji is an ice dome rising to about in the eastern part of

. It is the highest elevation in Queen Maud Land and also the highest elevation within the claims of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. In 1963–1964, a land based

Soviet Antarctic Expedition The Soviet Antarctic Expedition (SAE or SovAE) (, ''Sovetskaya antarkticheskaya ekspeditsiya'') was part of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of the Soviet Committee on Antarctic Research of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. It was ...

team travelled across the northern part of the dome at an elevation of over .

Environment

Owing to its location on the

Antarctic Plateau The Antarctic Plateau, Polar Plateau or King Haakon VII Plateau is a large area of East Antarctica that extends over a diameter of about , and includes the region of the geographic South Pole and the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. Thi ...

and the high elevation, Dome Fuji is one of the coldest places on Earth. Temperatures rarely rise above in summer and can drop to in winter. The annual average air temperature is . The climate is that of a cold desert, with very dry conditions and an annual precipitation of about of water equivalent, which falls entirely as

ice crystals Ice crystals are solid water (known as ice) in crystal structure, symmetrical shapes including hexagonal crystal family, hexagonal columns, hexagonal plates, and dendrite (crystal), dendritic crystals. Ice crystals are responsible for various at ...

Dome Fuji Station

Dome Fuji Station (ドームふじ基地 ''Dōmu Fuji Kichi'') was established as Dome Fuji Observation Base (ドームふじ観測拠点 ''Dōmu Fuji Kansoku Kyoten'') in January 1995. Its name was changed to "Dome Fuji Station" on April 1, 2004. Located at , it is separated from Showa Station by about .

Glaciology

Deep

ice core An ice core is a core sample that is typically removed from an ice sheet or a high mountain glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier ...

drilling at Valkyrie Dome was started in August 1995, and in December 1996 a depth of was reached. This first core covers a period back to 340,000 years. The core quality from the Dome Fuji Station is excellent, even in the brittle zone from deep, where the ice is fragile during the in situ core-cutting procedure. A second deep core was started in 2003. Drilling was carried out during four subsequent austral summers from 2003–2004 until 2006–2007, and by then a depth of was reached. The drill did not hit the bedrock, but rock particles and refrozen water have been found in the deepest ice, indicating that the bedrock is very close to the bottom of the borehole. This core greatly extends the climatic record of the first core, and according to a first, preliminary dating, it reaches back 720,000 years. The ice of the second Valkyrie Dome core is therefore the second-oldest ice ever recovered, outranged only by the EPICA Dome C core.

References

External links