The life and death of a subglacial lake in West Antarctica

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Matthew Siegfried and others write this paper that looks at the last 50 years, and the discovery and initial investigation of subglacial lakes in Antarctica have highlighted the paleoglaciological information that may be recorded in sediments at their beds. In December 2018, we accessed Mercer Subglacial Lake, West Antarctica, and recovered the first in situ subglacial lake-sediment record—120 mm of finely laminated mud. We combined geophysical observations, image analysis, and quantitative stratigraphy techniques to estimate long-term mean lake sedimentation. March 9, 2023