RES Signatures of Ice Bottom Near to Dome C (Antarctica)

Geophysical surveys have played a fundamental role in glaciology, climatology, and geology studies conducted at and around the site of the EPICA Dome C Ice Core (Antarctica). Analysis of radio-echo sounding (RES) data collected during the 2009 and 2011 Italian Antarctic Expeditions, in the immediate vicinity (2 km) of the Core site, reveals the presence of small-scale bedrock structures. Data acquired during the 2011 campaign, which applied the latest updates of our instrument, show double echoes from the ice bottom separated by very small time intervals. These reflections are distributed close to the topographic dome and do not always correspond to particular features of the bedrock structure, but instead may correspond to small-scale subglacial water storage. The unprecedented spatial resolution of the basal environment for Dome C from these recent surveys allows us to identify this and other features that have been missed by previous larger scale RES surveys of this area.