Exploring Europan Analogs of the McMurdo Sound and Ross Ice Shelf

The NASA-funded RISE UP program (Ross Ice Shelf & Europa Underwater Probe) is a three-season project to build future exploration technologies for ocean worlds that facilitate the exploration of analogs for ice-ocean processes in Antarctica. Key focuses of this work include basal ice conditions, ice-ocean interactions, and environmental conditions from the ice to the sea floor beneath the McMurdo sound sea ice, the McMurdo Ice Shelf, and the Ross Ice Shelf. Enabling this science to be achieved is the novel and scientifically capable Icefin hybrid AUV/ROV vehicle that conducts surveys from the ice to the seafloor to provide an integrated picture of the conditions below the ice. With one field season now complete in 2017-18, the project will extend its observations in the 2018-19, and 2019-20 austral summers. In cooperation with the Antarctica New Zealand Ross Ice Shelf Programme, PI Christina Hulbe, RISE UP will also deploy Icefin through a borehole through the Ross Ice Shelf to access previously unmapped regions of the sub-shelf water column. I will highlight the first results of RISE UP's first field season from October 2017 to early January 2018. This season includes data collection at three sea ice locations: two that allow us to swim Icefin underneath the ice shelf, and one at the Erebus Glacier Tongue. Onboard Icefin, we collected data from two sonars, two cameras, a DVL/ADCP, and sensors for conductivity & temperature, depth, pH/ORP, DO, CDOM/FDOM and turbidity. In 2018, Icefin will also carry a custom built cell counter, and a microscope, water sampling and ice sampling systems are being designed. The highlights of the scientific data collected this season include the first detection of new boundary layer interactions between the ice and ocean, observations of forming marine ice beneath the MIS, and observations of ice-ocean interactions within an ice shelf rift. In addition to describing Icefin and its observations of the basal ice, oceanographic properties below the sea ice and ice shelves, and seafloor, I will describe how these new data provide information that allows us to better frame our understanding of Europa's ocean and its potential interactions with the ice shell.This work was supported by NASA PSTAR program grant NNX16AL07G. Field work in Antarctica was supported by NASA and NSF under USAP project number B-041-M.