Frank Carsey

Burn Design Laboratory · Cookstoves

A hot water drill was used to penetrate 480 m of ice to reveal a diverse benthic assemblage, dominated by suspension-feeding invertebrates, under the Amery Ice Shelf (East Antarctica) at a location 100 km from open water and at a depth of 775 m below sea level (840 m below the ice shelf surface). This is the first record of a benthic assemblage of...

We have constructed a numerical model of basal ice formation for glacier ice in contact with subglacial sediment. The model predicts four different ice facies whose formation is controlled by availability of subglacial water to satisfy the basal freeze-on rate. Clean (or clotted) facies may result from congelation (or frazil) ice growth occurring w...

Borehole observations from the base of the West-Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) reveal the presence of a 10 to 15 m thick accretionary basal ice layer in the upstream area of Kamb Ice Stream (KIS). This ice layer has formed over a time of several thousand years by freeze-on of subglacial water to the ice base and has recorded during this time basal cond...

We will describe results of a "vision Mission" study called Palmer Quest, a mission to the deep subsurface of the North Polar Cap of Mars to assess the basal habitat and search for life, using a nuclear powered thermal probe, a surface flux station, and a robotic vehicle.

We are engaged in a NASA Vision Mission study, called Palmer Quest after the American Antarctic explorer Nathaniel Palmer, to assess the presence of life and evaluate the habitability of the basal domain of the Mars polar caps. We address this goal through four objectives: 1. Determine the presence of amino acids, nutrients, and geochemical heterog...

The miniature autonomous submersible explorer (MASE) was designed as a vehicle for astrobiology science by Behar et al. . This paper focuses on the MASE concept and extrapolates a future design based on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), multifunctional microsystems (MMS), and three-dimensional multichip modules (3-D-MCM). Miniaturization of th...

A real-time video camera probe was deployed in a hot-water drilled borehole through the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, where a total ice thickness of 480 m included at least 200 m of basal marine ice. Down-looking and side-looking digital video footage showed a striking transition from white bubbly meteoric ice above to dark marine ice below, bu...

We have developed and deployed the JPL Ice Borehole Camera system into boreholes in two sites in Antarctica (and are deploying it in a third at the time of this meeting), and we have analyzed the image data to improve our understanding of processes at the bed of ice streams and the at basal surface of ice shelves. Though quite simple, the image dat...

Here we present an initiative for the International Polar Year in 2007/08 to directly investigate the subglacial environment and geology of Antarctica and Greenland, representing a new frontier in ice sheet research, and a proposal to develop the technology - a hydro-mechanical drill - necessary to obtain rock and sediment samples from beneath deep...

From the IGY through the early 1970's, scientific knowledge about Antarctica was gleaned primarily from observations made at points along traverse routes or along sparsely spaced aircraft flight lines. Analysis of these observations provided tantalizing clues about the nature and behavior of the ice sheet and the bedrock beneath. But the data thems...

Laser Light Scattering (LLS) is a powerful, fast, and non-destructive way of optically interrogating embedded microparticles in solid ice. This is the basis for the design of the Laser Dust Detector (LDD) where laser light is directed via fiber optics into the ice surrounding the probe. If the ice is bubble and dust free the laser light will penetr...

The Tumbleweed rover, currently under development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, is a large, windblown, inflated ball, which carries an instrument payload in its interior. Such rovers offer an effective and simple means of gathering data over large spatial extents of Earth, Mars, and other solar system bodies. Tumbl...

The exploration of subsurface ice environments on the Mars polar caps, as well as the icy moons of the outer solar system, has gained increasing attention in recent years. A number of mission concepts have been developed to varying degrees to explore these subsurface regions. In prior studies the ability to access these environments to significant...

The distinctive layering visible in images from Mars Global Surveyor of the Martian polar caps, and particularly in the north polar cap, indicates that the stratigraphy of these polar layered deposits may hold a record of Martian climate history covering millions of years. On Earth, ice sheets are cored to retrieve a pristine record of the physical...

Tumbleweed is a wind-propelled long-range vehicle based on well-developed and tested technology, instrumented to perform surveys Mars analog environments for habitability and suitable for a variety of missions on Mars. Tumbleweeds are light-weight and relatively inexpensive, making it very attractive for multiple deployments or piggy-backing on a l...

Inflatable and rigid Tumbleweeds are wind-propelled long-range vehicles based on well-developed and field tested technology. Different Tumbleweed configurations can provide the capability to operate in varying terrains and accommodate a wide range of instrument packages making them suitable for autonomous surveys for in-situ natural resources. Tumb...

The Tumbleweed rover, currently under development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, is a large, windblown, inflated ball, which carries an instrument payload in its interior. Such rovers offer an effective and simple means of gathering data over large spatial extents of Earth, Mars, and other solar system bodies. Tumbl...

At the present time sea ice thickness distribution is understood to be a crucial variable that is descriptive of polar climate in a complex, integrative sense such that its determination over time is a significant priority. As it happens, the sea ice distribution is also a challenging determination given ideal circumstances of platforms and instrum...

Throughout the history of polar exploration and research, the difficulties and hazards of the polar environments have proven to be daunting and sometimes deadly. Field efforts require extensive planning and logistics support while deployment and operation of research instruments is limited by power availability, maintenance requirements and access....

The Mars polar caps are highly interesting features of Mars and have received much recent attention, with new and exciting data on morphology, basal units and layered outcroppings. We have examined the climatological, glaciological and geological issues associated with a subsurface exploration of the Mars North Polar Cap and have determined that a...

In a series of numerical simulations we have explored the effect of different subglacial settings upon basal accretion ice facies. The accretion ice facies are based on the composition of entrained debris. The main parameters in control of debris entrainment are: freezing rate, till behaviour, and water availability. We use numerical model results...

The topographic data set obtained by MOLA has provided an unprecedented level of information about Mars' geologic features. The proposed flight of JIMO provides an opportunity to accomplish a similar mapping of and comparable scientific discovery for the Jovian moons through use of an interferometric imaging radar analogous to the Shuttle radar tha...

The Galileo Europa data set served to revolutionize our view of Europa. In particular the strong evidence of a large, cold, salty Ocean beneath 5-30 km of ice has profoundly altered the significance of Europa in our thinking, especially of context of habitability in the solar system. While much remains to be learned from spacecraft observations of...

In early 2003, the Mars Icy Sample Team (MIST) was formed to address several questions related to the acquisition and analysis of ice-bearing samples on the surface of Mars by a robotic mission. These questions were specifically framed in the context of planning for the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) lander, but the answers will also also have...

Icy sites on Mars continue to be of high scientific importance. These sites include the polar caps, the southern mid-latitude subsurface permafrost, and the seasonal frost. These sites have interest due to their roles in climate processes, past climates, surface and near-surface water, astrobiology, geomorphology, and other topics. As is the case f...

The Miniature Autonomous Submersible Explorer (MAW) is a vehicle concept developed to probe the current miniaturization limits on instrumented autonomous submersibles. The goal of the concept is to develop an extremely small vehicle that carries MEMS instruments used to seek science data in extreme aqueous environments relevant to astrobiology. The...

The design and first deployment is described for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory-California Institute of Technology ice borehole camera system for acquisition of down-looking and side-looking images in a borehole made by a hot-water drill. The objective of the system is to acquire images in support of studies of the basal dynamics and thermodynamics...

The Instrumentation Technology Development Panel has attempted to identify the areas of recent innovations and continuing deficiencies in instrument technology as it pertains to planetary science goals and missions. Collaboration between science and technology aspects of all planetary science disciplines is crucial to the success of this task. We c...

It is well recognized that interpretations of Mars must begin with the Earth as a reference. The most successful comparisons have focused on understanding geologic processes on the Earth well enough to extrapolate to Mars' environment. Several facets of terrestrial analog studies have been pursued and are continuing. These studies include field wor...

A 2007 Mars North Polar Cap penetration mission is being proposed under the Mars Scout Discovery Program. The Cryobot robotic mole vehicle being developed by a team of JPL engineers would penetrate 200 meters below the polar ice cap in the only known accessible reservoir of water on the planet. The probe would be manifested with a suite of science...

The history of Antarctic exploration is filled with traverses for scientific and operational purposes, and they continue to be conducted today. Similarly, traverses are a crucial part of planned planetary science and operations. This paper addresses the proposal for development of an autonomous rover capable of making such extreme environment trave...

Since acquiring valuable data from interpretation of photographs taken at the glacier beds in the 1960's, it had been the desire of Prof. Kamb and coworkers to acquire video data of the basal environment of West Antarctic ice streams. In the period prior to the 2000-2001 field season while preparations were underway to revisit Ice Stream C, the ide...

A prototype cryobot will be used to provide an in-situ analysis of Longyearbreen glacier, in Svalbard. The cryobot is a small steerable robotic vehicle capable of melting through ice at a rate of ~20 m/day and carries a suite of instruments commonly used for ice core analysis. Terrestrial ice cores record climatological and geological history, such...

It is well recognized that interpretations of Mars must begin with the Earth as a reference. The most successful comparisons have focused on understanding geologic processes on the Earth well enough to extrapolate to Mars' environment. Several facets of terrestrial analog studies have been pursued and are continuing. These studies include field wor...

The Antarctic Ice Borehole Probe mission is a glaciological investigation, scheduled for November 2000-January 2001, that will acquire visible-light images and video in a hot-water drilled hole in the West Antarctic ice sheet. The objectives of the probe are to observe ice-bed interactions with a downward looking camera, and ice inclusions and stru...

The last 25 years have witnessed a tremendous change in the way scientists view the viability of lifeforms. Organisms can adapt to rather incredible environments of pressure, temperature, salinity, pH and assorted adverse chemistries. The authors establish methods for both surviving and replicating in those harsh conditions. Past efforts to study a...

The Galileo data from Europa has resulted in the strong suggestion of a large, cold, salty, old subglacial ocean and is of great importance. We have examined technology requirements for subsurface exploration of Europa and determined that scientific access to the hypothesized Europa ocean is a key requirement. By 'scientific access' we intend to di...

Recent events in planetary exploration have profoundly changed the way both space scientists and the public regard the solar system and our place in it. These events include the Galileo data suggesting subsurface oceans in the Jovian system, ever stronger suggestions of near-surface water on Mars, as well as the complex structure observed for the M...

n connection with recent Galileo images of the Jovian satellite Europa, there has been a significantly increased interest in the subglacial Lake Vostok in central East Antarctica. Since the theoretical prediction by Zotikov [1961] of the existence of lakes (one of which later was named Vostok) under ~4 km of ice in Antarctica and its confirmation b...

ABSTRACT: It is well recognized that interpretations of Mars must begin with the Earth as a reference. The most successful comparisons have focused on understanding geologic processes on the Earth well enough to extrapolate to Mars' environment. Several facets of terrestrial analog studies have been pursued and are continuing. These studies include...

Exploration of the deep subsurface ice sheets of Earth, Mars, Europa, and Callisto has become a major consideration in addressing scientific objectives in climate change, extremophile biology, chemical weathering, mineralogy, planetary evolution and ice dynamics. Similar exploration on Earth has been accomplished through ice coring, for chemical, b...

Ice motion over Lake Vostok, Antarctica, is measured using repeat-pass synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) interferometry. The coverage of the lake and the com- ponents of the vector field are resolved using10 overlapping data takes from ascending and descending look directions. Seventy-day temporal baselines provide the sensitivity required to observe...

We have examined the technological readiness of a mission to the Mars north polar area for the science objective of developing a climate history. We argue that the polar regions are scientifically extremely important mission sites from the perspectives of both climate history and astrobiology and that a polar deep subsurface mission would constitut...

The Martian polar caps contain some of the most important scientific sites on the planet. There is much interest in exploring them with a view to understanding their role in the Mars climate system. By gaining access to the stratigraphy of the polar terrain, it is probable that one can access the climate history of the planet. Additionally, investi...

A JPL development activity was initiated in FY 1999 for the purpose of examining and evaluating technologies that could materially improve future (i.e., beyond the 2005 launch) Mars sample return missions. The scope of the technology review was comprehensive and end-to-end; the goal was to improve mass, cost, risk, and scientific return. A specific...

One of the more likely places in the solar system for the existence of extraterrestrial life forms is the Jovian moon Europa. It has been postulated that a volcanically-heated ocean is likely to exist underneath Europa's icy surface. If a detailed remote-sensing reconnaissance of Europa determines that an ocean does exist under the ice, then in-sit...

One of the largest terrain corrected SAR mosaics, a mosaic of the state of Alaska, was created from 800 ERS-1 SAR summer images. Because of rain events, significant temporal changes of soil moisture often cause substantial changes in the signature of adjacent SAR images acquired on different dates. After an extensive search for suitable images from...

The Galileo spacecraft has sent back tantalizing image data hinting at a vast ocean beneath a thick ice crust on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons which is about the size of our moon. NASA plans to establish definitively whether this ocean exists with the Europa Orbiter mission to be launched in 2003. Should the Europa ocean be a reality, and this loo...

Carried aloft by a NASA rocket launched from Vandenburg Air Force Base on November 4, 1995, the Canadian Radarsat-l is equipped with a C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) capable of acquiring high resolution (25 m) images of Earth's surface day or night and under all weather conditions. Along with the attributes familiar to researchers working wi...

In 1985 NASA approved the Alaska SAR Facility (ASF) at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). The implementation was to be a joint effort between UAF and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The objective of ASF was and is to supply scientific and operational data users with calibrated, timely satellite SAR data. In 1991 A...

Young first-year sea ice is nearly as important as open water in modulating heat flux between the ocean and atmosphere in the Arctic. Just after the onset of freeze-up, first-year ice is in the early stages of growth and will consist of young first-year and thin ice. The distribution of sea ice in this thickness range impacts heat transfer in the A...

The Alaska SAR Facility (ASF) is now downlinking data for science and operational users from 4 satellites, ERS-1 and -2, JERS-1, and RADARSAT; ASF thus processes data generated by three non-US space agencies, ESA, NASDA, and CSA. All of these satellites may well be still functioning at the turn of the millennium. Scientific plans are now in place f...

A large-scale mosaic of the state of Alaska has been created from more than 800 ERS-1 SAR images generated at the Alaska SAR Facility (ASF). We used SAR images acquired during the summer of 1992 and 1993 for mosaicking. The reason that the summer season SAR images were selected is that the microwave wavelength used by the ERS-1 SAR, i.e., C band at...

The goal of the Alaska SAR Facility (ASF) Education Outreach is to use ASF data (and/or a family of data sets), technology, and resident expertise for education. Feedback from local teachers and the local school district has enabled the authors to develop their first curriculum element prototype module on glaciers: “From a Snowflake to a Surge.” Th...

The international research community is providing guidance to the Antarctic Mapping Project through the Antarctic Mapping Advisory Group. AMAG is tasked with helping assure that science opportunities envisioned for the program can be achieved with the mission plan, data reduction algorithms and final product suite. These opportunities include study...

This report provides a context in which questions put forth by NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth (OMPTE) regarding the next steps in spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) science and technology can be addressed. It summarizes the state-of-the-art in theory, experimental design, technology, data analysis, and utilization of SAR data for s...

This report provides a context in which questions put forth by NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth (OMPTE) regarding the next steps in spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) science and technology can be addressed. It summarizes the state-of-the-art in theory, experimental design, technology, data analysis, and utilization of SAR data for s...

The capabilities of both radar and computer systems for tracking sea ice will be expanded in late 1995 by the launching of the Canadian Radarsat satellite for collecting synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, and the upgrading of NASA's Alaska SAR facility (ASF) which will process most data from Radarsat. This article describes these developments in...

Data from ERS-1, especially from the AMI Image Mode, or SAR, have been particularly useful in providing data on ice type and motion and oceanic mesoscale features. These data have been used in studies of ocean and ice circulation, climate processes, mesoscale processes near the ice edge, freshwater fluxes, and convection, and have also proved usefu...

ERS-1 SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) data were used to specify Winter physical processes on the surface of the Greenland Sea, and SSM/I (Special Sensor Microwave/Imager) data were used to characterize the regional behavior of the ice cover. Examination of the SSM/I data indicated that the convective water was likely to be confined to small (less th...

In 1985 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the University of Alaska agreed to implement, at the Geophysical Institute of the Fairbanks campus, a facility dedicated to the acquisition, processing, distribution, and archival of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data to be downlinked from satellites. Since then, the Alaska SAR F...

Oceanic convective plumes modeled with a thermobaric large-eddy simulation and driven by conditions similar to those of the Greenland Sea are compared to observations from ERS-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the Greenland Sea for the winter of 1992. In both form and size the two representations are seen to compare favorably. The plume-fi...

A major surface feature of the Greenland Sea during winter is the frequent eastward extension of sea ice south of 75 deg N and an associated embayment to the north. These features are nominally connected with the East Greenland Current, and both the promontory) and the embayment are readily apparent on climatic ice charts. However, there are signif...

Present techniques of ice tracking make use both of cross-correlation and of edge tracking, the former being more successful in heavy pack ice, the latter being critical for the broken ice of the pack margins. Algorithms must assume some constraints on the spatial variations of displacements to eliminate fliers, but must avoid introducing any error...

A geophysical processor for deriving sea ice type and ice motion information from sequential SAR image data has been designed and is in implementation phase for use with ERS-1 SAR data at the Alaska SAR Facility (ASF). This SAR ice data processor, called the ASF Geophysical Processing System, or ASF-GPS, will be in place for launch in May 1991. Des...

The interpretation of satellite data is reviewed to address the possibility of extracting geophysically useful data regarding ice and snow. The scientific and practical utility of such data is examined in terms of the required and available scales, resolutions, and data types. Satellite instrumentation for ice and snow studies includes the AVHRR, t...

Authors set out with a rather short list of variables for the marching orders: identified the need for access to information on the radiation balance; the vertical surface heat and brine fluxes; the horizontal fresh water fluxes; the processes at the ice margins; and the associated ice conditions. They also recognized the need te understand how ice...

Carsey, F. D., 1990, An approach to brine and freshwater fluxes interpreted from SAR and microwave radiometer data. Methods are discussed for the estimation of fluxes of brine and freshwater from sea ice formation and melt in ice-covered seas. These estimates will be drawn from a combination of Synthetic aperture Radar (SAR) data, Special Sensor Mi...

Seasat 14.6-GHz scatterometer data are used to investigate variations in the large area-averaged backscatter signature during the late summer to fall transition. The temporal evolution in the backscatter coefficient indicates general changes in the surface properties of the sea ice which are attributed to the seasonal cycle. Notable events in this...

In March 1988, overlapping active and passive microwave instrument data were acquired over Arctic sea ice using the NASA DC-8 aircraft equipped with multifrequency, variable polarization SAR and radiometer. Flights were conducted as a series of coordinated underflights of the DMSP SSM/I satellite radiometer in order to validate ice products derived...

Arctic clouds and ice-covered surfaces are classified on the basis of textural and spectral features obtained with AVHRR 1.1-km spatial resolution imagery over the Beaufort Sea during May-October, 1989. Scenes were acquired about every 5 days, for a total of 38 cases. A list comprising 20 arctic-surface and cloud classes is compiled using spectral...

The study is based on AVHRR imagery and results from Landsat high-spatial-resolution scenes. Among the textual features investigated are the gray level difference vector (GLDV), and sum and difference histogram (SADH) approaches as well as gray level run length, spatial-coherence, and spectral-histogram measures. The traditional stepwise discrimina...

Science objectives, opportunities and requirements are discussed for the utilization of data from the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) on the European First Remote Sensing Satellite, to be flown by the European Space Agency in the early 1990s. The principal applications of the imaging data are in studies of geophysical processes taking place within t...

Ice observations, results, and conclusions are summarized for the March 1987 Labrador Ice Margin Experiment (LIMEX'87), an international oceanographic study conducted in the pack ice of the Grand Banks area off the coast of Newfoundland. Included are the ice extent, flow size and thickness, ice kinematics and rheology, ice microwave properties, oce...

The margin of the sea-ice pack of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas is examined using the microwave data from Seasat taken during the summer to early fall, July 4 through October 8, 1978, and the observations are compared to the analogous observations taken in LIMEX'87. The sensors used are synthetic-aperture radar (SAR), the Seasat-A scatterometer sys...

The status of obtaining geophysical observations through the interpretation of satellite data over sea ice is discussed. It is pointed out that the community working in this area has grown in size and sophistication over the last decade, that the connection between microscopic properties of ice and its microwave behavior is now being understood, an...

The Programme for International Polar Oceans Research is accepted as a part of the ERS-1 mission which will be initiated with the launch of the ERS-1 earth observation satellite by the European Space Agency in 1990. It is a bipolar program with participation by institutions engaged in studies of the atmosphere-ocean-sea ice interaction and the appl...

Summary form only given. A geophysical processing system (GPS) that will routinely process SAR (synthetic aperture radar) images of sea ice to produce fields of ice motion and ice-type concentration to support studies of ice dynamics and to update operational predictive ice models is being implemented. For this study, the GPS in its interim configu...

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Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data and aerial photographs were obtained over pack ice off the East Coast of Canada in March 1987 as part of the Labrador Ice Margin Experiment (LIMEX) pilot project. Examination of this data shows that although the pack ice off the Canadian East Coast appears essentially homogeneous to visible light imagery, two cle...

The Alaska SAR Facility (ASF) program for the acquisition and processing of data from the ESA ERS-1, the NASDA ERS-1, and Radarsat and to carry out a program of science investigations using the data is introduced. Agreements for data acquisition and analysis are in place except for the agreement between NASA and Radarsat which is in negotiation. Th...

Image data from Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) are used to observe an ice compaction event off the East Coast of Newfoundland in spring, 1987. The information developed from sequential SAR observations is shown to do a remarkably effective job of describing the ice conditions; the difficult variable was the ice thickness which was found to be surpr...

The first field program of the international Labrador Ice Margin Experiment (LIMEX) took place in the Grand Banks region off the east coast of Newfoundland, Canada, during the last 2 weeks of March 1987. LIMEX was conceived as a series of studies to be conducted at 2-year intervals to address a number of objectives related to the dynamics of the La...

This paper presents data collected by airborne and satellite instruments during the Labrador Ice Margin Experiment, that demonstrate the effects of oceanic and atmospheric processes on the ice conditions in the Grand Banks-Labrador sea area. Special consideration is given to the development of algorithms for extracting information from SAR data. It...

The motion of sea ice in the summer and fall marginal zone of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas is observed by tracking ice features in sequential Seasat synthetic aperture radar images. Four examples of ice motion fields are shown and discussed with translation observation density finer than one observation per 5 km for the most part. In this region t...

A receiving station for the acquisition and processing of spaceborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is being established by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. The data that will be received from a number of SAR satellites that are to be launched starting in 1990 will allow U.S. rese...