TY - JOUR

T1 - Review article: AntArchitecture – building an age–depth model from Antarctica's radiostratigraphy to explore ice-sheet evolution

AU - Bingham, R. G.

AU - Bodart, Julien A.

AU - Cavitte, Marie G. P.

AU - Chung, Ailsa

AU - Sanderson, Rebecca J.

AU - Sutter, Johannes C. R.

AU - Eisen, Olaf

AU - Karlsson, Nanna B.

AU - MacGregor, Joseph

AU - Ross, Neil

AU - Young, Duncan A.

AU - Ashmore, David W. Ashmore

AU - Born, Andreas

AU - Chu, Winnie

AU - Cui, Xiangbin

AU - Drews, Reinhard

AU - Franke, Steven

AU - Goel, Vikram

AU - Goodge, John W.

AU - Henry, A. Clara J.

AU - Hermant, Antoine

AU - Hills, Benjamin

AU - Holschuh, Nicholas

AU - Koutnik, Michelle R.

AU - Leysinger Vieli, Gwendolyn J.-M. C.

AU - MacKie, Emma

AU - Mantelli, Elisa

AU - Martín, Carlos

AU - Ng, Felix S. L.

AU - Oraschewski, Falk M.

AU - Napoleoni, Felipe

AU - Parrenin, Frederic

AU - Popov, Sergey V.

AU - Rieckh, Therese

AU - Schlegel, Rebecca

AU - Schroeder, Dustin M.

AU - Siegert, Martin J.

AU - Tang, Xueyuan

AU - Teisberg, Thomas O.

AU - Winter, Kate

AU - Yan, Shuai

AU - Davis, Harry

AU - Dow, Christine F.

AU - Fudge, Tyler J.

AU - Jordan, Tom

AU - Kulessa, Bernd

AU - Matsuoka, Kenichi

AU - Nyqvist, Clara J.

AU - Rahnemoonfar, Maryam

AU - Siegfried, Matthew R.

AU - Singh, Shivangini

AU - Višnjević, Vjeran

AU - Zamora, Rodrigo

AU - Zuhr, Alexandra

PY - 2025/10/20

Y1 - 2025/10/20

N2 - Abstract. Radio-echo sounding (RES) has revealed an internal architecture within both the West and East Antarctic ice sheets that records their depositional, deformational and melting histories. Crucially, RES-imaged internal-reflecting horizons, tied to ice-core age–depth profiles, can be treated as isochrones that record the age–depth structure across the Antarctic ice sheets. These enable the reconstruction of past climate and ice dynamical processes on large scales, which are complementary to but more spatially extensive than commonly used proxy records (e.g. former ice limits constrained by cosmogenic dating or offshore sediment sequences) around Antarctica. We review the progress towards building a pan-Antarctic age–depth model from these data by first introducing the relevant RES datasets that have been acquired across Antarctica over the last 6 decades (focussing specifically on those that detected internal-reflecting horizons) and outlining the processing steps typically undertaken to visualise, trace and date (by intersection with ice cores or modelling) the RES-imaged isochrones. We summarise the scientific applications for which Antarctica's internal architecture has been used to date and present a pathway to expanding Antarctic radiostratigraphy across the continent to provide a benchmark for a wider range of investigations: (1) identification of optimal sites for retrieving new ice-core palaeoclimate records targeting different periods; (2) reconstruction of surface mass balance on millennial or historical timescales; (3) estimation of basal melting and geothermal heat flux from radiostratigraphy and comprehensive mapping of basal-ice units to complement inferences from other geophysical and geological methods; (4) advancement of the knowledge of volcanic activity and fallout across Antarctica; and (5) refinement of numerical models that leverage radiostratigraphy to tune time-varying accumulation, basal melting and ice flow, firstly to reconstruct past behaviour and then to reduce uncertainties in projecting future ice-sheet behaviour.

AB - Abstract. Radio-echo sounding (RES) has revealed an internal architecture within both the West and East Antarctic ice sheets that records their depositional, deformational and melting histories. Crucially, RES-imaged internal-reflecting horizons, tied to ice-core age–depth profiles, can be treated as isochrones that record the age–depth structure across the Antarctic ice sheets. These enable the reconstruction of past climate and ice dynamical processes on large scales, which are complementary to but more spatially extensive than commonly used proxy records (e.g. former ice limits constrained by cosmogenic dating or offshore sediment sequences) around Antarctica. We review the progress towards building a pan-Antarctic age–depth model from these data by first introducing the relevant RES datasets that have been acquired across Antarctica over the last 6 decades (focussing specifically on those that detected internal-reflecting horizons) and outlining the processing steps typically undertaken to visualise, trace and date (by intersection with ice cores or modelling) the RES-imaged isochrones. We summarise the scientific applications for which Antarctica's internal architecture has been used to date and present a pathway to expanding Antarctic radiostratigraphy across the continent to provide a benchmark for a wider range of investigations: (1) identification of optimal sites for retrieving new ice-core palaeoclimate records targeting different periods; (2) reconstruction of surface mass balance on millennial or historical timescales; (3) estimation of basal melting and geothermal heat flux from radiostratigraphy and comprehensive mapping of basal-ice units to complement inferences from other geophysical and geological methods; (4) advancement of the knowledge of volcanic activity and fallout across Antarctica; and (5) refinement of numerical models that leverage radiostratigraphy to tune time-varying accumulation, basal melting and ice flow, firstly to reconstruct past behaviour and then to reduce uncertainties in projecting future ice-sheet behaviour.

UR - https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/19/4611/2025/

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/71bbc05c-4d36-3567-a682-3a91b3c3e9c2/

U2 - 10.5194/tc-19-4611-2025

DO - 10.5194/tc-19-4611-2025

M3 - Article

VL - 19

SP - 4611

EP - 4655

JO - Cryosphere

JF - Cryosphere

SN - 1994-0416

IS - 10

ER -