New mineral dust record from the TALDICE ice core (East Antarctica)

Aeolian mineral dust is an active component of the climate system, interacting both directly and indirectly with radiation and biogeochemistry. Its deposition and stratigraphical preservation in appropriate environmental setting leaves deposits that once dated can be used as paleoclimate proxies. In particular dust records from ice cores can provide insights into past variations of environmental conditions at the dust source areas, atmospheric circulation, the hydrological cycle at source and deposition sites and dust deposition mechanisms. Here we present the new dust record from the 1620 m deep TALDICE ice core, drilled at Talos Dome (159°11' E, 72°49' S, 2315 m A.S.L.), on the edge of the East Antarctic plateau, about 290 km from the Southern Ocean and 250 km from the Ross Sea. We analysed variations in dust concentration, depositional flux, size distributions and geochemical fingerprint. The TALDICE dust records confirms the major findings from previous ice core studies in terms of the big glacial/interglacial variations in dust deposition, thanks to the relatively high accumulation rate and good dating. We also show new peculiar aspects emerging for this record, such as the importance of Antarctic sources for dust for this peripheral sites and the relation between variations in dust deposition during the deglaciation and the Holocene to variations in the atmospheric circulation in the Ross Sea.