Hercules Dome

Hercules Dome is located at ~86°S, 105°W, between the Horlick and Thiel Mountains, about 400 km from the South Pole. It was first identified as a promising site for a deep ice core on the basis of radar and shallow ice-core data collected by US International Trans‐Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE) traverse in 2002-2003 (Jacobel and others, 2005).

Elevation profile and radar stratigraphy at West Dome collected by the site-selection team in 2019. Figure courtesy of Knut Christianson.

Hercules Dome actually comprises three distinct features, informally known as the “Hercules Dome Summit”, “East Dome” and “South Ridge”, which are anchored by subglacial ridges. Ongoing site-selection work with ice-penetrating radar, GPS surveys, and ice-flow modeling, show that Hercules Dome Summit is the best site (see Fudge et al. 2022 and Hills et al., in preparation, 2023).

Getting people and equipment to Hercules Dome for drilling is a major operation, which will likely involve at least one tractor-traverse all the way from McMurdo Station, about 1600 kilometers away. For much of the distance, we will be able to take advantage of the well-established route from McMurdo to South Pole.

The current logistics timeline has the first traverse to Hercules Dome starting no sooner than the 2025/2026 field season. View the project timeline for the latest schedule of anticipated activities. In the meanwhile, we’ll be working with the National Science Foundation, the Antarctic Support Contractor, and the U.S. Ice Drilling Program (IDP) engineers at the University of Madison-Wisconsin, in planning logistics.

Because drilling will not begin for a few years, there is ample time to consider getting involved in the science and in other aspects of the project.

ICECReW 2025

The NSF Center for Oldest Ice Exploration (NSF COLDEX) and the Ice Core Early-Career Researchers Workshop (ICECReW) are partnering to host a writing workshop and retreat on May 15 and 16, 2025, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after the US Ice Core Community Meeting (May 12-14). The theme of this year’s workshop is science writing, including making figures to communicate results, responding to peer reviews, how to structure papers, and deciding on journals and authorship. The workshop will also provide time for writing and peer review, and participants should bring materials they would like to work on (e.g., papers, dissertations, fellowship and grant applications). We will also have an evening social event on Sunday, May 11, before IceCOMM. This workshop is intended for early-career researchers whose work contributes to polar sciences or paleoclimatology. We broadly define “early career” as someone within 3 years of PhD (before or after completion), although exceptions are certainly possible. Application Deadline: February 6, 2025.

Hercules Dome Workshop and US Ice Core Community Meeting 2025

We will host a 1/2-day Hercules Dome workshop to update the community on logistics planning and coordination of Hercules Dome science. Those planning to submit proposals to be part of the Hercules Dome ice-core ice-analysis team are strongly encouraged to attend. This is expected to be the first of a regular annual PI meeting for Hercules Dome. The Hercules Dome Workshop is part of our fourth annual US Ice Core Community Meeting (IceCOMM), to be held May 12-14, 2025, at the University of Minnesota. The Community Meeting is intended for anyone interested in ice core science or related fields, including ice-core analysis, ice or subglacial drilling, glacier geophysics that supports or depends on ice core records, paleoclimate, and contemporary climate and ice sheet change. Details on hotel rooms, travel support, and other aspects of the meeting and workshop will be publicized in or before February 2025. To ensure you do not miss announcements, we recommend joining the Hercules Dome mailing list.