Thermal legacy of a large paleolake in Taylor Valley, East Antarctica, as evidenced by an airborne electromagnetic survey

Myers, Krista F.; Doran, Peter T.; Tulaczyk, Slawek M.; Foley, Neil T.; Bording, Thue S.; Auken, Esben; Dugan, Hilary A.; Mikucki, Jill A.; Foged, Nikolaj; Grombacher, Denys; Virginia, Ross A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-3577-2021

Articles | Volume 15, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-3577-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-3577-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 8

Research article

|

03 Aug 2021

Research article |

| 03 Aug 2021

Thermal legacy of a large paleolake in Taylor Valley, East Antarctica, as evidenced by an airborne electromagnetic survey

Krista F. Myers, Peter T. Doran, Slawek M. Tulaczyk, Neil T. Foley, Thue S. Bording, Esben Auken, Hilary A. Dugan, Jill A. Mikucki, Nikolaj Foged, Denys Grombacher, and Ross A. Virginia

Data sets

McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER: Lake level surveys in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica from 1991 to present P. T. Doran and M. N. Gooseff https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/3d0e0c4d844792d9964dd4179a3d83aa

2011 Time-domain ElectroMagnetics data for McMurdo Dry Valleys S. Tulaczyk https://doi.org/10.15784/601071

Short summary

Lake Fryxell, Antarctica, has undergone hundreds of meters of change in recent geologic history. However, there is disagreement on when lake levels were higher and by how much. This study uses resistivity data to map the subsurface conditions (frozen versus unfrozen ground) to map ancient shorelines. Our models indicate that Lake Fryxell was up to 60 m higher just 1500 to 4000 years ago. This amount of lake level change shows how sensitive these systems are to small changes in temperature.