Dome Fuji (ドームふじ ''Dōmu Fuji''), also called Dome F or Valkyrie Dome, is an Antarctic base located in the eastern part of

Queen Maud Land Queen Maud Land ( no, Dronning Maud Land) is a roughly region of Antarctica claimed by Norway as a dependent territory. It borders the claimed British Antarctic Territory 20° west and the Australian Antarctic Territory 45° east. In addi ...

at . With an altitude of above sea level, it is the second-highest summit or ''ice dome'' of the

East Antarctic Ice Sheet The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is one of two large ice sheets in Antarctica, and the largest on the entire planet. The EAIS lies between 45° west and 168° east longitudinally. The EAIS holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by and ...

and represents an

ice divide An ice divide is the boundary on an ice sheet, ice cap or glacier separating opposing flow directions of ice, analogous to a water divide. Ice divides are important for geochronological investigations that use ice cores, since such coring is typic ...

. Dome F is the site of Dome Fuji Station, a research station operated by Japan.

Discovery and naming

Dome Fuji is an ice dome rising to about in the eastern part of

. In 1963–1964, a

Soviet Antarctic Expedition The Soviet Antarctic Expedition (SAE or SovAE) (russian: Советская антарктическая экспедиция, САЭ, ''Sovetskaya antarkticheskaya ekspeditsiya'') was part of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute of the S ...

oversnow traverse crossed the northern part of the dome at an elevation of over .

Environment

Owing to its location on the

Antarctic Plateau The Antarctic Plateau, Polar Plateau or King Haakon VII Plateau is a large area of East Antarctica which extends over a diameter of about , and includes the region of the geographic South Pole and the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. This h ...

and the high elevation, Dome Fuji is one of the coldest places on Earth. Temperatures rarely rise above in summer and can drop to in winter. The annual average air temperature is . The climate is that of a cold desert, with very dry conditions and an annual precipitation of about of water equivalent, which falls entirely as

ice crystals Ice crystals are solid ice exhibiting atomic ordering on various length scales and include hexagonal columns, hexagonal plates, dendritic crystals, and diamond dust. Formation The hugely symmetric shapes are due to depositional growth, n ...

Dome Fuji Station

Dome Fuji Station (ドームふじ基地 ''Dōmu Fuji Kichi'') was established as Dome Fuji Observation Base (ドームふじ観測拠点 ''Dōmu Fuji Kansoku Kyoten'') in January 1995. Its name was changed to "Dome Fuji Station" on April 1, 2004. Located at , it is separated from Showa Station by about .

Glaciology

Deep ice core drilling at Valkyrie Dome was started in August 1995, and in December 1996 a depth of was reached. This first core covers a period back to 340,000 years. The core quality from the Dome Fuji Station is excellent, even in the brittle zone from deep, where the ice is fragile during the in situ core-cutting procedure. A second deep core was started in 2003. Drilling was carried out during four subsequent austral summers from 2003–2004 until 2006–2007, and by then a depth of was reached. The drill did not hit the bedrock, but rock particles and refrozen water have been found in the deepest ice, indicating that the bedrock is very close to the bottom of the borehole. This core greatly extends the climatic record of the first core, and according to a first, preliminary dating, it reaches back 720,000 years. The ice of the second Valkyrie Dome core is therefore the second-oldest ice ever recovered, outranged only by the EPICA Dome C core.

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