Byrd Polar Research Center

The Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (BPCRC) is a polar, alpine, and climate research center at The Ohio State University founded in 1960.

The Byrd Polar Research Center (BPRC) at Ohio State University was established in 1960 as the Institute for Polar Studies. BPRC is the oldest research center at The Ohio State University. The name was changed to the Byrd Polar Research Center in 1987 after the polar explorer and aviator Richard E. Byrd when Ohio State purchased the Byrd papers from the Byrd family in 1985. Admiral Byrd did not attend Ohio State nor did work for the university. The acquisition of the Byrd Papers was the impetus for creating a Polar Archival program. The name was subsequently changed to the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center to capture the scope of research conducted at the center.

BPRC conducts interdisciplinary research at the nexus of Earth Sciences and Engineering. BPRC is known for its ice core paleoclimatology research collecting ice core records from Earth's highest and most remote ice fields and modeling polar climate variability. Studies at BPRC include paleoclimatology, remote sensing, polar meteorology, glacier dynamics, satellite hydrology, paleoceanography, environmental geochemistry, and climate change. BPRC houses the Polar Rock Repository and the Goldthwait Polar Library.

This Environmental Geochemistry group collects and analyzes soil and water samples from many locations around the world to study biogeochemical cycles, anthropogenic influences on natural systems, and to use geochemistry as a tool to learn more about various hydrological, biological and physical processes.

This group has conducted studies of the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica since 1993 as part of the NSF’s Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program. Ongoing projects in Antarctica include drilling into the subglacial ecosystem of "Blood Falls" in the Dry Valleys and measuring glacial melt input into the Southern Ocean in West Antarctica. The Environmental Geochemistry group is also investigating hydrologic flowpaths in Panama using geochemical tracers. Additionally, the group has studied of the deposition of mercury on the landscape in the U.S. and in Antarctica, and led investigations of chemical and physical weathering of rocks of high-standing oceanic islands like Taiwan and New Zealand. Members of this group also study the impact of human activities in urban areas on streams and lakes around Ohio.

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