New maps of the ice thickness and subglacial topography in Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, determined by means of airborne radio-echo sounding

Since the austral summer of 1994-95 the Alfred Wegener Institute has carried out airborne radio-echo sounding (RES) measurements in Antarctica with its newly designed RES system. Since 1995-96 an ongoing pre-site survey for an ice-coring drill site in Dronning Maud Land has been carried out as part of the European Project for Ice Goring in Antarctica. The survey covers an area of 948 000 km2, with >49 500 km of airborne RES obtained from >200 hours of flight operation flown during the period 1994-97. In this paper, first results of the airborne RES survey are graphically summarized as newly derived maps of the ice thickness and subglacial topography, as well as a three-dimensional view of surface and subglacial bed and outcrop topography, revealing a total ice volume of 1.48 x 106 km3.