The Graphite Peak, Mt Rosenwald and Mt Boyd Central Transantarctic
and the Mt. Crean Victoria Land field sites are amongst the
best locations to assess the preservation of organic matter
in rocks and the adjacent ice sheets in Antarctica. We will
take advantage of the new Beardmore basecamp that will serve
as our AP-MALDI staging site for the Central Antarctic field
program. The purpose of this field effort is to sample, in
detail, the Permian-Triassic (P/Tr) boundary. The P/Tr boundary
in Antarctica is well exposed in the bedrock with evidence
of Permian fossil plants Glossopteris leaf the Gondwana coal
and the Triassic Listrosaurus. While several carbon isotopic
studies have been carried out in some of these locations,
very little is known about the characteristic biomarker/organic
signatures of these organic-rich ancient (250 Ma) sediments.
Thus, Graphite Peak and the other Central and Southern Antarctic
P/Tr field locations offer a unique opportunity to make in
situ measurements of organic matter (abiotic and biotic) in
frozen sediments and ices in the Antarctic environment. The
P/Tr boundary in the Graphite Peak location is defined by
a thin (6 cm claystone breccia) and contains extraterrestrial
meteoritic debris (Basu et al., 2003).
|
