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Greenland Snow Pit and Core Stratigraphy (Analog and Digital Formats), Version 1

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

This data set is comprised of scientific field study notebooks from geologist Carl S. Benson describing his traverses of Greenland from 1952 to 1955. The notebooks contain data on Greenland snow accumulation, snow temperature, stratigrapy, ice sheet facies, and snow densification. Dr. Benson's notebooks also include a supplementary 1956 snow accumulation study done by the U.S. Air Force. The notebooks have been scanned and put into PDF format. In addition, a compendium of Greenland snow accumulation data, compiled by Dr. Benson in 1986, is included that spans 1911 to 1981. It is in ASCII text format.During a four-year period from 1952 through 1955, Carl Benson, along with many other individuals and several other organizations, dug and studied 146 snow pits and made 288 supplementary snow hardness profiles with a ramsonde instrument along a 1100 mile traverse in Northwest Greenland (Benson 1962). For each exposed pit, temperature, density, ram hardness, and grain size were measured. The data in the notebooks include a listing of all pit locations, a summary matrix of data collected at each station; accumulation data adjusted for Fall 1954 and Fall 1955 reference horizons; average accumulation for all stations; integrated ram hardness (snow density); descriptive stratigraphy, pit profile temperature and density; and pit and core temperature, density, ram hardness, and stratigraphy for each location. Benson's notebooks for 1952 through 1954 were scanned at NSIDC and are available via FTP. As of January 2013, the 1955 notebooks have not been digitized.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
Publisher NSIDC
Maintainer
Identifier 10.7265/N5RN35SK
Data Last Modified 2025-09-11
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id f3bfc1eb-628f-40a7-a77d-0be3a813318d
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://noaadata.apps.nsidc.org/NOAA/G10004/
Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"WestBoundingCoordinate":-69.0,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":78.0,"EastBoundingCoordinate":-38.0,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":69.0}
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash e02bead4ae440f44909a8a3c2fb21152407b9e4f0711af32c6055ce6f7549282
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 1911-01-01/1911-01-01

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