This award for a cooperative agreement supports the technical foundation of an aerogeophysical facility that is required for several projects within the Polar Earth Sciences and Polar Glaciology Programs. The facility is referred to as SOAR, the Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research. The function of SOAR is to facilitate aerogeophysical research over continental Antarctica toward an understanding of the dynamic behavior of the ice sheet and the nature of the lithosphere beneath the ice sheet. SOAR will support peer-reviewed research requiring high precision laser altimetery, gravity, magnetics and navigational data sets. Tasking for SOAR will be negotiated annually. The first projects to be supported are investigations in West Antarctica. West Antarctica is characterized by two kinds of the Earth s most dynamic systems, a continental rift (the West Antarctic Rift System) and a marine based ice sheet, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Active continental rift systems, caused by divergent plate motions, result in thinned continental crust. Associated with the thin crust are fault-bounded sedimentary basins, active volcanism, and elevated heat flow. Marine ice sheets are characterized by rapidly moving streams of ice, penetrating and draining a slowly moving ice reservoir. Evidence left by past marine ice sheets indicates that they may have a strongly non-linear response to long-term climate change which results in massive and rapid discharges of ice. Understanding the evolution of the ice stream system and its interaction with the interior ice is the key to understanding this non-linear response. In addition to these specific projects, SOAR will provide information essential to site selection decisions for a West Antarctic ice core as well as critical information for selection of locations of over-snow seismic transects. SOAR represents a unique experiment in research support for the US Antarctic program. It has the potential to revolutionize the conduct of Earth Science and Glaciology research in Antarctica.
