Microstructures and Fabric Transitions of Natural Ice from the Styx Glacier, Northern Victoria Land, Antarctica

Abstract

We investigated the microstructures of five ice core samples from the Styx Glacier, northern Victoria Land, Antarctica. Evidence of dynamic recrystallization was found in all samples: those at 50 m mainly by polygonization, and those at 170 m, largely by grain boundary migration. Crystallographic preferred orientations of all analyzed samples (view from the surface) typically showed a single cluster of c-axes normal to the surface. A girdle intersecting the single cluster occurs at 140–170 m with a tight cluster of a-axes normal to the girdle. We interpret the change of crystallographic preferred orientations (CPOs) at <140 m as relating to a combination of vertical compression, and shear on a horizontal plane, and the girdle CPOs at depths >140 m, as the result of horizontal extension. Based on the data obtained from the ground penetrating radar, the underlying bedrock topography of a nunatak could have generated the extensional stress regime in the study area. The results imply changeable stress regimes that may occur during burial as a result of external kinematic controls, such as an appearance of a small peak in the bedrock.