• appears to alter the kinetics of the development of deformation textures and is, at high temperature, at the origin of recrystallization textures. The purpose of this work is to obtain a better understanding of recrystallization processes that occur in polar ice sheets and to clarify the relationship between dynamic recrystallization and textures. The study was based on two deep ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, the GReenland Ice core Project (GRIP) and Vostok ice cores. The structure along the GRIP core displays normal grain growth in the first 100 m of the ice sheet and rotation recrystallization and migration recrystallization near the bottom. Only grain growth and rotation recrystallization appear to occur in the Vostok ice core. The transition between these recrystallization regimes was studied, estimating, for interglacial ice, the evolution with depth of the dislocation density. This calculation has shown the efficiency of grain boundary migration for the absorption of dislocations. At Vostok, the highest value of the dislocation density is found at a depth of about 1000 m and the continuous decrease in the dislocation density below this depth is related to the increase of the grain boundary migration rate. It is shown that the driving force required to initiate migration recrystallization is not reached in interglacial ice at Vostok. The observed textures were compared with those predicted by the self-consistent approach. Recrystallization textures are interpreted by assuming that the less stressed grains, i.e., the best oriented for basal slip, are favored by the size advantage of subgrains. The recrystallization textures are compared with those of other materials.

Under present‐day climatic conditions the air content of ice shows a high sensitivity to the atmospheric pressure and hence to the elevation at the surface of the ice sheet. This observation has been used to infer past ice sheet thickness variations of Antarctica and Greenland. A high‐resolution air content profile (more than 1000 measurements) covering approximately the last 200,000 years was obtained along the 2546‐m long Vostok ice core. Three analytical techniques were used, leading to consistent results which show large amplitude and rapid air content variations. The Vostok results support thicker/thinner ice in the central part of East Antarctica during warm/cold periods. However, constraints imposed by ice sheet dynamics suggest that the Vostok air content signal cannot be interpreted only in terms of ice sheet thickness variations. Apart from ice thickness changes, the two other potential sources of air content variations are atmospheric pressure and ice porous volume at the air isolation level. Several atmospheric general circulation models have been applied to the last glacial maximum. They show atmospheric pressure changes which can only explain part of the air content variations in the Vostok ice core. On the other hand, the ice porous volume at the depth of air isolation undergoes fairly well‐quantified thermal variations, but they are too small to play a dominant role in the Vostok signal. On the basis of new data concerning the present day ice porous volume variations we suggest that a wind influence on ice porous volume at the air isolation level could be a source for the unexplained air content variations at Vostok. Equivalent contributions from elevation, air pressure, and nonthermal porous volume changes could explain the air content drop during the penultimate deglaciation. Wind speed changes by about 7 m s−1 could be the source of the large and rapid air content variations observed during glacial stages.

Abstract. An interpretation of the deuterium profile measured along the Vostok (East Antarctica) ice core down to 2755 m has been attempted on the basis of the borehole temperature analysis. An inverse problem is solved to infer a local "geophysical metronome," the orbital signal in the surface temperature oscillations expressed as a sum of harmonics of Milankovich periods. By correlating the smoothed isotopic temperature record to the metronome, a chronostratigraphy of the Vostok ice core is derived with an accuracy of _+3.0-4.5 kyr. The developed timescale predicts an age of 241 kyr at a depth of 2760 m. The ratio 13D/13T i between deuterium content and cloud temperature fluctuations (at the top of the inversion layer) is examined by fitting simulated and measured borehole temperature profiles. The conventional estimate of the deuteriumtemperature slope corresponding to the present-day spatial ratio (9 per mil/øC) is confirmed in general. However, the mismatch between modeled and measured borehole temperatures decreases noticeably if we allow surface temperature, responsible for the thermal state of the ice sheet, to undergo more intensive precession oscillations than those of the inversion temperature traced by isotope record. With this assumption, we obtain the long-term temporal deuterium-temperature slope to be 5.8-6.5 per mil/øC which implies that the glacial-interglacial temperature increase over central Antarctica was about 15øC in the surface temperature and 10øC in the inversion temperature. Past variations of the accumulation rate and the corresponding changes in the ice-sheet surface elevation are simultaneously simulated.

Abstract. We investigate for the first time the loss and alteration of past atmospheric information from air trapping mechanisms under low-accumulation conditions through continuous CH 4 (and CO) measurements. Methane concentration changes were measured over the DansgaardOeschger event 17 (DO-17, ∼ 60 000 yr BP) in the Antarctic Vostok 4G-2 ice core. Measurements were performed using continuous-flow analysis combined with laser spectroscopy. The results highlight many anomalous layers at the centimeter scale that are unevenly distributed along the ice core. The anomalous methane mixing ratios differ from those in the immediate surrounding layers by up to 50 ppbv. This phenomenon can be theoretically reproduced by a simple layered trapping model, creating very localized gas age scale inversions. We propose a method for cleaning the record of anomalous values that aims at minimizing the bias in the overall signal. Once the layered-trapping-induced anomalies are removed from the record, DO-17 appears to be smoother than its equivalent record from the high-accumulation WAIS Divide ice core. This is expected due to the slower sinking and densification speeds of firn layers at lower accumulation. However, the degree of smoothing appears surprisingly similar between modern and DO-17 conditions at Vostok. This suggests that glacial records of trace gases from low-accumulation sites in the East Antarctic plateau can provide a better time resolution of past atmospheric composition changes than previously expected. We also developed a numerical method to extract the gas age distributions in ice layers after the removal of the anomalous layers based on comparison with a weakly smoothed record. It is particularly adapted for the conditions of the East Antarctic plateau, as it helps to characterize smoothing for a large range of very low-temperature and low-accumulation conditions.

We have used 16S ribosomal genes to estimate the bacterial contents of Lake Vostok accretion ice samples at 3551 m and 3607 m, both containing sediment inclusions and formed 20000–15000 yr ago. Decontamination proved to be a critical issue, and we used stringent ice chemistry-based procedures and comprehensive biological controls in order to restrain contamination. As a result, up to now we have only recognized one 16S rDNA bacterial phylotype with confident relevance to the lake environment. It was found in one sample at 3607 m depth and represents the extant thermophilic facultative chemolithoautotroph Hydrogenophilus thermoluteolus of beta-Proteobacteria, and until now had only been found in hot springs. No confident findings were detected in the sample at 3551 m, and all other phylotypes revealed (a total of 16 phylotypes, 336 clones including controls) are presumed to be contaminants. It seems that the Lake Vostok accretion ice is actually microbe-free, indicating that the water body should also be hosting a highly sparse life. The message of thermophilic bacteria suggests that a geothermal system exists beneath the cold water body of Lake Vostok, what is supported by the geological setting, the long-term seismotectonic evidence from 4He degassing and the ‘18O shift’ of the Vostok accretion ice. The seismotectonic activity that seems to operate in deep faults beneath the lake could sustain thermophilic chemolithoautotrophic microbial communities. Such a primary production scenario for Lake Vostok may have relevance for icy planets and the approaches used for estimating microbial contents in accretion ice are clearly relevant for searching for extraterrestrial life.