Each year, the recommends new names for geographical features, to honour scientists and support staff who have worked in the region. This year, they have announced that a 2000 m mountain on the southern Antarctic Peninsula will be named Mount Millar after Dr Ian Millar of the 51ΑΤΖζ (BGS).

Ian, who works at BGS headquarters in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, worked for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) for more than 21 years before he became an isotope geochemist at BGS in 2005. During his time at BAS, he took part in several field seasons and cruises in and around the Antarctic Peninsula and Transantarctic Mountains, spending more than a year in total working on the southern continent.

In 1991, Ian spent ten weeks camping and travelling by skidoo with a field guide in a remote area of the southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula, collecting rock samples in order to determine the ages of the rocks, working close to the location of Mount Millar. His work there contributed to determining the geological history of the peninsula through detailed geochronology.

I have been incredibly lucky to undertake some amazing fieldwork during my career, both in Antarctica with BAS and, more recently, in much warmer regions like North Africa and south-east Asia since joining BGS.

Dr Ian Millar, BGS Isotope Geochemist.

Mount Millar can be found on the .

About the author

A paper marking the culmination of a highly successful project into a former ice sheet is helping researchers to understand more about the north-west European continental shelf. It’s also helping improve forecasting for the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.

The five-year, Β£3.7 million BRITICE-CHRONO consortium, funded by NERC, took on the most ambitious geochronological project yet, encompassing on- and offshore mapping around the UK and Ireland to better describe and understand the growth and decay of the last British–Irish ice sheet.

BRITICE research included 1500 days of field investigation yielding 18 000 km of marine geophysical data, 377 cores of sea-floor sediment and geomorphological and stratigraphical information at over one hundred sites on land. This enabled the generation of 690 new geochronometric ages, which were collected to understand the timings, coverage and retreat of the British–Irish ice sheet and to provide a geochronological framework between 31 000 and 15 000 years ago.

The findings bear a strong similarity to the dynamics and evolving configuration in the Antarctic today, enabling scientists to refine and improve current ice sheet modelling approaches. It will also aid researchers investigating regional palaeoenvironments as well as those working on offshore development (e.g. offshore renewables) and marine management.

51ΑΤΖζ is proud to have played a role in this important project. The paper compiles and distils many of the detailed findings from the onshore work and offshore transects of the project and will serve as a useful resource to inform and expand on current knowledge on the evolution of the British–Irish ice sheet.

Dayton Dove, BGS Marine Geoscientist.

51ΑΤΖζ scientists participated in and contributed to the project by providing expertise, data and information to support planning, implementation and interpretation of survey and project results. The offshore coring was also carried out by BGS engineering teams.

Two reconstructions of the ice sheet were developed: an empirical version and one that combines modelling and the new empirical evidence. Palaeoglaciological maps of ice extent, thickness, velocity and flow geometry at thousand-year time intervals were also produced.

The paper, , was published in BOREAS.

At the beginning of July 2021, the SUN-SPEARS project team embarked on its first fieldwork trip to Spitsbergen, the biggest island of the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Electronic and instrumentation engineer Harry Harrison and I, waving the BGS flag, were lucky enough to be part of this contingent of researchers made up of biologists, environmental engineers and geophysicists.

Our ambition is to study the evolution of newly emerging soils uncovered by retreating glaciers. In order to achieve this, we installed an array of geophysical sensors on a glacier forefield at two different locations over soils of five and fifty years of age. We also collected a range of soil samples that will tell us more about the local biodiversity and how this varies between soils of different ages.

Ny-Γ…lesund research settlement

Located at a latitude of 79Β°N, Ny-Γ…lesund was our home for three weeks. It is a former mining town that is now dedicated entirely to Arctic research. The Governor of Svalbard, through Kings Bay company, operates the logistics behind the research stations, which belong to various countries including Norway, UK, France, Germany, Korea and Japan. Unfortunately, the pandemic prohibited the UK station from opening this year, but we were kindly hosted by our friends at Sverdrup, the Norwegian station. They provided valuable instructions, directions and, most importantly, radio communication.

While out in the field we were in constant contact with the lookout on duty, who was responsible for letting us know of any potential dangers on site. This proved to be essential on one of our days out, when we had the exciting yet slightly terrifying experience of being notified that a mama polar bear and her two cubs were taking a break from their journey around the fjord and were right in our way back to town. Binoculars allowed us to spot them quite quickly and, with eyes on them at all times, we returned safe and sound by taking a substantial detour through the rolling moraines.

The Midtre LovΓ©nbreen glacier

Towering near our fieldsite stands the very impressive glacier Midtre LovΓ©nbreen (ML). It has lost almost one kilometre, a fifth of its maximum length, over the past 90 years due to global warming. It has left behind a large moraine dominated by glaciofluvial debris. Despite looking like a desolated, frozen land, among the loose rocks and sediments we were able to find soil. This is a mark of change, a mark of a new Arctic environment in the making, and it is precisely this soil formation and evolution that we are so curious about.

Sensor installations

We left an array of electrodes and other soil sensors in the ground that will record soil temperature, moisture content and electrical resistivity. These parameters will give us an indication of how soil properties change on the moraine across the different seasons. For example, it will enable us to understand how quickly the soil freezing front progresses once subjected to below-zero air temperatures or how quickly the spring snow-melt infiltrates. Until now, this was unknown to the scientific community, researchers being unable to access these Arctic field sites in the winter due to the very harsh weather conditions.   

We have left our instruments behind to measure for a whole year. Their batteries will hopefully be kept alive by the wind turbine and solar panel we also installed. With a bit of luck, we will find them as they are now when we return next summer, holding some very precious data that may be the key to uncovering some of the Arctic secrets.

About the author

51ΑΤΖζ is pleased to be part of a joint expedition of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), focused on the Arctic Ocean – a key location in global climate change.

Despite its global importance, the Arctic Ocean is the last major region on Earth where the long-term climate history remains poorly known.

IODP Expedition 377 Arctic Ocean Paleoceanography – or ArcOP – will represent a step-change in reconstructing the detailed history of climate change in the central Arctic Ocean over the last 50 million years.

A joint expedition, it will involve expertise from the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD), the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (SPRS) and Arctic Marine Solutions (AMS) and is planned to take place in August and September 2022.

Science behind the ArcOrp Expedition

The Arctic Ocean is a very sensitive and important region for global climate change, and is unique in comparison to the other oceans on Earth. Due to complex feedback processes (collectively known as β€œArctic amplification”), the Arctic is both a contributor to climate change and a region that is most affected by global warming.

Major advances in understanding were achieved in 2004 when the successful completion of IODP Expedition 302: Arctic Coring Expedition – ACEX, also implemented by ECORD, marked the start of a new era in Arctic climate exploration.

The ArcOP expedition will explore a critical time interval, spanning the period when prominent changes in global climate took place during the transition from the early Cenozoic Greenhouse world to the late Cenozoic Icehouse world.

An international team of scientists will collect about 900 m of sediment cores at two sites along the Lomonosov Ridge.

We anticipate that the sedimentary record that the Arc-OP expedition is targeting will provide critical puzzle pieces enabling the scientific community to better understand the drivers, feedbacks, consequences, and varying rates of Cenozoic climate change at both regional and global scales.

Prof Kristen St John, ArcOP Co-chief Scientist.

A unique and challenging expedition, a fleet composed of a scientific drillship supported by two icebreakers will be used to make drilling possible in this permanently ice-covered region.

Such a multi-vessel approach was employed by ECORD for the first time during the ACEX Expedition in 2004.

The expedition will last for about seven weeks offshore and will be followed by intensive investigation and sampling of the cores onshore to unlock their climate secrets.

51ΑΤΖζ will help to lead the implementation of the expedition through its role as the co-ordinator of the ECORD Science Operator (ESO), in close collaboration with SPRS and AMS.  

51ΑΤΖζ staff are excited to be part of this ambitious IODP expedition that will see us manage, co-ordinate and support an international team of scientists through our role as the coordinator of the ECORD Science Operator.

Our role is very much to support the team efforts to uncover and understand the history of climate change in the central Arctic Ocean over the last 50 million years.

We will provide expedition management and coring oversight, and work with our partners to provide facilities and services for the curation, databasing, archiving and analysis of collected cores and samples, and downhole logging services.

David McInroy, BGS Geoscientist.

Further details of the expedition can be found on the .

More information

Scientists from the UK and Norway have produced a 160 000-year timeline of methane emissions from the Arctic seabed and linked them to changing ice volumes in the Arctic.

The new research from the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU), the Arctic University of TromsΓΈ and BGS reveals that methane was released from the deepest parts of the seabed on three occasions: following the end of the last ice age around 23 000 years ago; 40 000 to 50 000 years ago, and 150 000 years ago. Each methane release episode lasted 10 000 to 20 000 years.

The scientists took samples and cores from Vestnesa Ridge, a remote spot in the Arctic Ocean off Svalbard, the archipelago between Norway and the North Pole, at a water depth of 1200 m.

It is the first time that deep-sea methane emissions in the Arctic, known as seeps, have been linked to changing continental ice volumes.

During ice sheet growth, the extra weight of the ice presses the Earth crust downward. Following the melting of the ice, the crust rises again.

Our data indicate that methane off western Svalbard emanated from the seabed primarily when ice sheet movements activated the faults. How much methane was emitted, however, we don’t know.

Dr Tobias Himmler, researcher at NGU.

Expeditions to Vestnesa Ridge collected samples of seep carbonates, rocks that act as geological archives of past methane emissions, which were tested at the BGS Geochronology and Tracers Facility.

We were able to calculate the ages of the carbonate pieces by measuring the ratio between uranium, which is incorporated into the carbonate from sea water, and its decay product, thorium.

The youngest samples, collected from the seabed using a remotely operated vehicle, confirmed what we’ve known from previous work on shallow methane seeps on the Norwegian shelf β€” they began forming as the last glacial maximum was ending 23000 years ago.

β€˜The middle episode, 40 000 to 50 000 years ago, identified in a shallow drill core, also happened when the ice was retreating. In these two cases it is the removal of pressure that caused the methane to seep.

The oldest methane release episode 160 000 years ago happened while the ice was either growing or at its maximum extent, which is when the ice would have put pressure on the continental crust and effectively squeezed out the methane.

Next steps could include sampling at other locations across the Arctic. This is just one spot in the Arctic and we need to know if this matches what happened at a regional level.

Dr Diana Sahy, BGS Isotope Research Scientist.

The research project β€˜β€™ (NORCRUST) is funded by the Norwegian Research Council through the Petromaks2 program. BGS is a NORCRUST research partner.