https://doi.org/10.20575/00000051
Polar Data Journal, Vol. 8, 1–9, February 2024
Ⓒ 2024 National Institute of Polar Research. This work is distributed
under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

High-resolution scanning and lithological data of lake sedimentarycores from the Schirmacher Oasis, Dronning Maud Land, East
Antarctica
Yusuke SUGANUMA 1,2*, Badanal Siddaiah MAHESH 3, Kota KATSUKI 4, Anish Kumar WARRIER 5,
Heitaro KANEDA 6, Takeshige ISHIWA 1,2, Minoru IKEHARA 7 and Rahul MOHAN 3

1 National Institute of Polar Research, Research Organization of Information and Systems,

10-3, Midori-cho, Tachikawa, Tokyo 190-8518.
2 The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, 10-3, Midori-cho, Tachikawa,Tokyo 190-8518.
3 National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Headland Sada Vasco-da-gama, Goa 403804, India.
4

Estuary Research Center, Shimane University, 1060 Nishikawatsu-cho, Matsue,
Shimane 690-8504.

5 Centre for Climate Studies, Department of Civil Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology,

Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka 576104, India.
6 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chuo University, 1-13-27 Kasuga,

Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-8551.
7 Marine Core Research Institute, Kochi University, B200 Monobe, Nankoku,

Kochi 783-8502.
*Corresponding author. Yusuke Suganuma (suganuma.yusuke@nipr.ac.jp)(Received September 24, 2023; Accepted January 14, 2024)

Abstract: The Schirmacher Oasis, marked by numerous lakes, located in Dronning Maud Land,provides excellent opportunities to address the past variability of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.
During the austral summer season in 2019, an international collaborative project entitled“Schirmacher Oasis Nippon (Japan) India Coring (SONIC) Expedition” between Japan and India
carried out intensive fieldwork in the Schirmacher Oasis based out from Maitri, the Indian researchstation. A total of 20 sedimentary cores were retrieved from nine lakes in the Schirmacher Oasis byusing a newly developed percussion piston corer. Among them, fifteen cores were transported toJapan by airplane, and several non-destructive analyses and visual descriptions were conducted at
the Marine Core Research Institute, Kochi University. In this report, we compile these core data topresent basic information for further research on ice-sheet variability.

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1. Background and Summary
Reconstructing past variability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS), in particular, the East
Antarctica Ice Sheet (EAIS), which occupies ~90% of the total AIS volume, is essential tounderstand its stability and to predict its contribution to future sea-level change (e.g., Mackintosh etal., 20141). A number of studies have reported significant temporal variation in the thickness andextent of the EAIS in Dronning Maud Land (DML) since the last glacial period (e.g., Altmaier et al.,20102; Anderson et al., 20203; Ishiwa et al., 20214; Kawamata et al., 20205; Miura et al., 1998a6,
1998b7; Sproson et al., 20218; Suganuma et al., 20149; Suganuma et al., 202210; Yamane et al.,201111) (Figure 1), however the maximum geographical extent of EAIS during the Last Glacial
Maximum (LGM) and the subsequent melting history have not been well constrained. The presenceof over 108 lakes in the Schirmacher Oasis in DML provides excellent opportunities to address thisfundamental question (Figure 2). Although only a few lakes have been cored and studied in detaildue to limitations in accessing them, the sediments of the lakes are envisaged to provide acontinuous history from not only the LGM (e.g., Phartiyal et al., 201112; Phartiyal, 201413), but also
from the last glacial period (e.g., Mahesh et al., 201714; 201915; Warrier et al., 201416; 202117).
Therefore, long sedimentary records from the lakes in the Schirmacher Oasis will be a key forunderstanding EAIS history and reconstructing the various environmental changes since the Last
Interglacial.
The Schirmacher Oasis Nippon (Japan) India Coring (SONIC) expedition, an international
collaborative project between Japan and India, carried out intensive fieldwork in the Schirmacher
Oasis during the austral summer season in 2019 based out from Maitri, the Indian research station.
During the SONIC expedition, 20 sedimentary cores were recovered from proglacial, land-locked,
and epi-ice shelf lakes by using a newly developed percussion piston corer (Suganuma et al., 201918)
from a frozen lake water surface. The new corer could retrieve a sediment core with a diameter of
65 mm and a length of up to 8 m during the SONIC expedition. After retrieval of these lake sedimentcores, fifteen cores were transported to Japan by airplane under cool (+4˚C) or cold (–18˚C)temperatures for non-destructive analyses and visual core descriptions. The remaining cores weresent to India. This report covers the data from the fifteen sedimentary cores acquired during the
SONIC expedition.

2. Location and observation
The Schirmacher Oasis is a large ice-free area located close to the present grounding line of the
Nivlisen ice shelf and has the over 108 proglacial, land-locked, and epi-ice shelf lakes (Figure 2).
The SONIC project carried out sediment coring in nine lakes and obtained 20 cores. Some of thelong cores were cut into two sections so that each section would be less than 1.5 m long, making iteasier to transport. Among the obtained cores, fifteen were transported to the National Institute of2

Polar Data Journal, Vol.8, 1–9, February 2024

Polar Research and subsequently to the Marine Core Research Institute, Kochi University (MaCRI)(previously known as the Center for Advanced Marine Core Research) in Japan for preliminary
analysis and sub-sampling. All core locations and core information are listed in Table 1.

3. Methods
We carried out computerized tomographic (CT) scanning for whole sediment cores, and thenthe sedimentary cores were longitudinally split into working and archive halves. The archive halfcores were used for the gamma density and magnetic susceptibility measurements, as well as photoscanning. The working-half cores were used for the lithological description of the sediments. Then,
subsamples were collected from the working half-cores with 1 cm slices for later analyses.

3.1. CT scanning and CT value calculation
CT scanning of the sediment cores was carried out using the Aquilion PRIME Focus Edition
designed by CANON MEDICAL SYSTEMS CORPORATION. The slice interval is 0.5 mm, andthe spatial resolution of the scanning is approximately 0.16 mm. The CT data were visualized using
Osirix software (Rosset et al., 200419), and then the CT values were extracted from the center of thecore slices. The CT average values (CT_ave_value in the table) were also calculated within a radiusof approximately 1.6 cm from the core center (equivalent to 100 pixels) using Pydicom software(refer to Ishiwa et al., 202220 for more detailed information).

3.2. Multi-Sensor Core Logger (MSCL)
The gamma density (bulk density) and magnetic susceptibility of the sediment cores were
continuously measured using a sensor for gamma ray attenuation (GRA) and a point sensor (MS2E)
that are paired to the Bartington MS3 meter with the Geotek multi-sensor core logger (MSCL)
system (e.g., Ishiwa et al., 201621, Oiwane et al., 201422). The sediment cores were transported on a
stepper-motor-driven tracking system, and the data were collected at 1 cm intervals. The GRA
densitometer used a 10 mCi 137Cs capsule as the gamma ray source (with the principal energy peak
at 0.662 MeV) and a scintillation detector (See Oiwane et al., 201422 for more details of the analysis).

3.3. Photo scanning and color reflectance calculation
Photo images for the sediment cores were obtained using continuous image photographic
equipment with 600 dpi. The color reflectance values of photography were calculated using OpenCVin Python (See Ishiwa et al., 202220, for more details). We extracted RGB values from thephotography and calculated L*, a*, and b* values from RGB variations.

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3.4. Description of lithology
The lithological description was made immediately after the core splitting. Key sedimentologic
features were described, including lithologies, visible sedimentary structures, color, grain size,
biogenic material, and core disturbance. The primary designation for each lithology was determinedby the texture of the grains. Textural names were derived from the Shepard grain size distribution(Shepard, 195423).

4. Data Records
The data from this study consists of four files: Core_data.pdf, MSCL_data.xlsx, Color_data.xlsx,
and CT-value_data.xlsx. These data have been deposited in the Arctic Data archive System (ADS)(see Data Citation). Here we provide the pdf-formatted catalog for analyzed cores to make theircharacteristics easily visible, but we can also offer individual CT images upon requests from readers.

5. Technical Validation
The sediment depth control is essential to conduct paleoenvironmental reconstruction. In thisstudy, the lengths of the cores are based on the visual descriptions and photography of the half-split
cores. So, we adjusted the CT and MSCL measurement data lengths with those of the visualdescription and photography by visually matching the images and measurement results.
The whole cores were kept at room temperature before the MSCL measurements because themagnetic susceptibility changes with the temperature.

6. Usage Notes
Before using the data for publication or presentation in any media, please request permission inwriting. Inquiries should be added addressed to:
Yusuke SUGANUMA
National Institute of Polar Research, 10-3, Midori-cho, Tachikawa, Tokyo 190-8518, Japan
E-mail: suganuma.yusuke@nipr.ac.jp

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7. Figures

Figure 1. Overview of Dronning Maud Land and location of the study area. The base map is fromthe Quantarctica GIS package compiled by the Norwegian Polar Institute (Matsuoka etal., 202124). Topographic contours based on Liu et al. (2015)25 are overlain on theLandsat Image of Antarctica (LIMA). The black arrow indicates the location referenced
in Figure 2. The orange dashed circles labeled with numbers represent areas whereprevious research on ice-sheet variability, based on surface exposure dating, has been
conducted: 1. Kawamata et al., (2020)5, Yamane et al. (2011)11, 2. Akçar et al. (2020)26,
Matsuoka et al. (2006)27, Moriwaki et al. (1992)28, Nishiizumi et al. (199129; 199830),
Suganuma et al. (2014)9, 3. Altmaier et al. (2010)2, Strub et al. (2015)31, 4. Suganuma etal. (2022)10, 5. Anderson et al. (2020)3.

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Figure 2. Overview of the Schirmacher Oasis. Red squares and yellow circles correspond to
Antarctic stations and sedimentary cores, respectively.

8. Tables
Table 1. All core information.

Author contributions
The SONIC expedition was designed by an international collaboration between NIPR (PI: Y.
Suganuma) and NCPOR (PI: R. Mohan). Sediment cores are obtained by SONIC project members(Y. Suganuma, K. Katsuki, H. Kaneda, B.S. Mahesh, A.K. Warrier). All analyses in MaCRI were6

Polar Data Journal, Vol.8, 1–9, February 2024

carried out by Y. Suganuma, K. Katsuki, T. Ishiwa, and H. Kaneda. All co-authors contributed to
improving the manuscript.

Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition and partially fundedby JSPS Kakenhi (19H00728, 16H05739, 17H06321, and 21H01173), and the TOREY Science
Foundation. Kentaro Watanabe and Satoshi Imura helped with an arrangement of the international
collaboration between National Institute of Polar Research, Japan, and National Centre for Polar andOcean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences - India. This study was performed under the cooperative
research program of Center for Advanced Marine Core Research, Kochi University <Accept No.
20A040; 20B037> with kind support from Takuya Matsuzaki and all technical staffs. This is
NCPOR J-63/2023-24.

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Data Citations
Suganuma. Y., Mahesh B., Katsuki, K., Warrier, A., Kaneda, H., Ishiwa, T., Ikehara, M., and Mohan, R.
Non-destructive analysis and lithological descriptions of lake and shallow marine sediment cores from
Schirmacher Oasis, Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica. 1.00, Japan, Arctic Data archive System(ADS), 2024. https://doi.org/10.17592/001.2023090701.

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