[{"awards": "2317997 Keogh, Molly", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -60,-144 -60,-108 -60,-72 -60,-36 -60,0 -60,36 -60,72 -60,108 -60,144 -60,180 -60,180 -63,180 -66,180 -69,180 -72,180 -75,180 -78,180 -81,180 -84,180 -87,180 -90,144 -90,108 -90,72 -90,36 -90,0 -90,-36 -90,-72 -90,-108 -90,-144 -90,-180 -90,-180 -87,-180 -84,-180 -81,-180 -78,-180 -75,-180 -72,-180 -69,-180 -66,-180 -63,-180 -60))", "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Thu, 17 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Climate change is disproportionately affecting polar regions, with the Arctic now warming nearly four times faster than the global average. Polar warming drives coastal erosion and increases sediment delivery to the coastal ocean, affecting ecosystem processes ranging from primary productivity to carbon sequestration. Tracking changes in sedimentation rate is urgently needed to determine current conditions and measure further change. In polar regions, however, two of the most globally reliable sediment tracers, the radioisotopes lead-210 (210Pb) and cesium-137 (137Cs), have yielded mixed results. To understand the distribution and usefulness of these radioisotopes at high latitudes, this research makes use of a wealth of polar sediment cores archived at the Oregon State University Marine and Geology Repository combined with data synthesized from the literature. Results provide the first systematic study of Arctic and Antarctic sediment accretion. Improving the tools we use to track changes in sedimentation will help coastal managers and decisionmakers understand how climate change is impacting polar coastlines and marine environments, and what local communities should expect in the future. Sediment cores will be subsampled and analyzed for the activities of 210Pb (half-life = 22.3 years) and 137Cs (half-life = 30.1 years) using alpha and gamma spectroscopy, respectively. To provide context related to depositional environment, select subsamples will also be analyzed for sediment bulk density, grain size distribution, and organic content. A subset of samples with no measurable 210Pb or 137Cs activity will be analyzed for 14C to determine whether the lack of radioisotopes in a sample is because the core is simply too old, the true surface layer is missing, or because the shorter-lived radioisotopes did not accumulate. By undertaking comprehensive spatial analysis of the distribution of 210Pb and 137Cs in Arctic and Antarctic sediments, this research will achieve three goals: first, measure the activity of short-lived radioisotopes in archived sediment cores, a service to the science community that is urgently needed before the isotopes decay beyond detection; second, produce a comprehensive pole-wide atlas of sediment accretion rates; and finally, conduct a temporal analysis of sedimentation rate changes over the last ~60 to 125 years along the Beaufort Sea coast of northern Alaska, an ecologically and economically important region experiencing environmental transformation due to climate warming. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": 180.0, "geometry": "POINT(0 -89.999)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Alpha Spectrometry; Sediment Dynamics; Polar; SEDIMENTATION; MARINE SEDIMENTS; Pb-210; Geochronology; SEDIMENTS", "locations": "Polar", "north": -60.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Post Doc/Travel; Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Keogh, Molly", "platforms": null, "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -90.0, "title": "Postdoctoral Fellowship: OPP-PRF: Tracing Polar Sediments with Short-lived Radioisotopes in 75 years of Arctic and Antarctic Sediment Cores", "uid": "p0010484", "west": -180.0}, {"awards": "2317263 Cross, Andrew", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Mon, 14 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The seaward motion of ice sheets and glaciers is primarily controlled by basal sliding at the base of the ice sheet and internal viscous flow within the ice mass. The latter of these \u2014 viscous flow \u2014 is dependent on various factors, including temperature, stress, grain size, and the alignment of ice crystals during flow to produce a \"crystal orientation fabric\" (COF). Historically, ice flow has been modeled using an equation, termed \u201cGlen\u2019s law\u201d, that describes ice-flow rate as a function of temperature and stress. Glen\u2019s law was constrained under relatively high-stress conditions and is often attributed to the motion of crystal defects within ice grains. More recently, however, grain boundary sliding (GBS) has been invoked as the rate-controlling process under low-stress, \u201csuperplastic\u201d conditions. The grain boundary sliding hypothesis is contentious because GBS is not thought to produce a COF, whereas geophysical measurements and polar ice cores demonstrate strong COFs in polar ice masses. However, very few COF measurements have been conducted on ice samples subjected to superplastic flow conditions in the laboratory. This project would measure the evolution of ice COF across the transition from superplastic to Glen-type creep. Results will be used to interrogate the role of superplastic GBS creep within polar ice masses, and thereby provide constraints on polar ice discharge models. Polycrystalline ice samples with grain sizes ranging from 5 \u00b5m to 1000 \u00b5m will be fabricated and deformed in a laboratory, using a 1-atm cryogenic axial-torsion apparatus. Experiments will be conducted at temperatures of -30\u00b0C to -10\u00b0C, and at a constant uniaxial strain rate. Under these conditions, 5% to 99.99% of strain should be accommodated by superplastic, GBS-limited creep, depending on the sample grain size. The deformed samples will then be imaged using cryogenic electron backscatter diffraction (cryo-EBSD) and high-angular-resolution electron backscatter diffraction (HR-EBSD) to quantify COF, grain size, grain shape, and crystal defect (dislocation) densities, among other microstructural properties. These measurements will be used to decipher the rate-controlling mechanisms operating within different thermomechanical regimes, and resolve a long-standing debate over whether superplastic creep can produce a COF in ice. In addition to the polycrystal experiments, ice bicrystals will be fabricated and deformed to investigate the micromechanical behavior of individual grain boundaries under superplastic conditions. Ultimately, these results will be used to provide a microstructural toolbox for identifying superplastic creep using geophysical (e.g., seismic, radar) and glaciological (e.g., ice core) observations. This project will support one graduate student, one or more undergraduate summer students, and an early-career researcher. In addition, this project will support a workshop aimed at bringing together experimentalists, glaciologists, and ice modelers to facilitate cross-disciplinary knowledge sharing and collaborative problem solving. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "United States Of America; Rheology; ROCKS/MINERALS/CRYSTALS; GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS", "locations": "United States Of America", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Cross, Andrew", "platforms": null, "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Microstructural Evolution during Superplastic Ice Creep", "uid": "p0010430", "west": null}, {"awards": "2147045 Learman, Deric", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -60,-168 -60,-156 -60,-144 -60,-132 -60,-120 -60,-108 -60,-96 -60,-84 -60,-72 -60,-60 -60,-60 -62,-60 -64,-60 -66,-60 -68,-60 -70,-60 -72,-60 -74,-60 -76,-60 -78,-60 -80,-72 -80,-84 -80,-96 -80,-108 -80,-120 -80,-132 -80,-144 -80,-156 -80,-168 -80,180 -80,171 -80,162 -80,153 -80,144 -80,135 -80,126 -80,117 -80,108 -80,99 -80,90 -80,90 -78,90 -76,90 -74,90 -72,90 -70,90 -68,90 -66,90 -64,90 -62,90 -60,99 -60,108 -60,117 -60,126 -60,135 -60,144 -60,153 -60,162 -60,171 -60,-180 -60))", "dataset_titles": "Physical and geochemical data from shelf sediments eastern Antarctica", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601876", "doi": "10.15784/601876", "keywords": "Antarctica; Cryosphere", "people": "Learman, Deric", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Physical and geochemical data from shelf sediments eastern Antarctica", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601876"}], "date_created": "Tue, 30 Aug 2022 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Microbes in Antarctic surface marine sediments have an important role in degrading organic matter and releasing nutrients to the ocean. Organic matter degradation is at the center of the carbon cycle in the ocean, providing valuable information on nutrient recycling, food availability to animals and carbon dioxide release to the atmosphere. The functionality of these microbes has been inferred by their genomics, however these methods only address the possible function, not their actual rates. In this project the PIs plan to combine genomics methods with cellular estimates of enzyme abundance and activity as a way to determine the rates of carbon degradation. This project aims to sample in several regions of Antarctica to provide a large-scale picture of the processes under study and understand the importance of microbial community composition and environmental factors, such as primary productivity, have on microbial activity. The proposed work will combine research tools such as metagenomics, meta-transcriptomics, and metabolomics coupled with chemical data and enzyme assays to establish degradation of organic matter in Antarctic sediments. This project benefits NSFs goals of understanding the adaptation of Antarctic organisms to the cold and isolated environment, critical to predict effects of climate change to polar organisms, as well as contribute to our knowledge of how Antarctic organisms have adapted to this environment. Society will benefit from this project by education of 2 graduate students, undergraduates and K-12 students as well as increase public literacy through short videos production shared in YouTube. The PIs propose to advance understanding of polar microbial community function, by measuring enzyme and gene function of complex organic matter degradation in several ocean regions, providing a circum-Antarctic description of sediment processes. Two hypotheses are proposed. The first hypothesis states that many genes for the degradation of complex organic matter will be shared in sediments throughout a sampling transect and that where variations in gene content occur, it will reflect differences in the quantity and quality of organic matter, not regional variability. The second hypothesis states that a fraction of gene transcripts for organic matter degradation will not result in measurable enzyme activity due to post-translational modification or rapid degradation of the enzymes. The PIs will analyze sediment cores already collected in a 2020 cruise to the western Antarctic Peninsula with the additional request of participating in a cruise in 2023 to East Antarctica. The PIs will analyze sediments for metagenomics, meta-transcriptomics, and metabolomics coupled with geochemical data and enzyme assays to establish microbial degradation of complex organic matter in Antarctic sediments. Organic carbon concentrations and content in sediments will be measured with \u03b413C, \u03b415N, TOC porewater fluorescence in bulk organic carbon. Combined with determination of geographical variability as well as dependence on carbon sources, results from this study could provide the basis for new hypotheses on how climate variability, with increased water temperature, affects geochemistry in the Southern Ocean. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": 90.0, "geometry": "POINT(-165 -70)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "BENTHIC; ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS; Weddell Sea; Antarctic Peninsula; SEDIMENT CHEMISTRY; R/V NBP", "locations": "Antarctic Peninsula; Weddell Sea", "north": -60.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Learman, Deric", "platforms": "WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V NBP", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -80.0, "title": "Collaborative Research: ANT LIA: Connecting Metagenome Potential to Microbial Function: Investigating Microbial Degradation of Complex Organic Matter Antarctic Benthic Sediments", "uid": "p0010373", "west": -60.0}, {"awards": "2114839 Passchier, Sandra", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Argon thermochronological data on Pliocene ice-rafted detrital mineral grains from IODP Expedition 379 in the Amundsen Sea sector; Grain-size data for the Pliocene section at IODP Site U1533, Amundsen Sea", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601900", "doi": "10.15784/601900", "keywords": "Amundsen Sea Sector; Antarctica; Cryosphere; Glaciation; Grain Size; Pliocene; Sediment Core Data; Sedimentology", "people": "Mino-Moreira, Lisbeth; Passchier, Sandra", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Grain-size data for the Pliocene section at IODP Site U1533, Amundsen Sea", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601900"}, {"dataset_uid": "601907", "doi": "10.15784/601907", "keywords": "40Ar/39Ar; Amundsen Sea; Amundsen Sea Sector; Antarctica; Cryosphere; Ice-Rafted Detritus; IODP; Paleoclimate; Pliocene; Provenance; Sedimentology", "people": "Hemming, Sidney R.; Passchier, Sandra", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Argon thermochronological data on Pliocene ice-rafted detrital mineral grains from IODP Expedition 379 in the Amundsen Sea sector", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601907"}], "date_created": "Wed, 25 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is the most vulnerable polar ice mass to warming and already a major contributor to global mean sea level rise. Its fate in the light of prolonged warming is a topic of major uncertainty. Accelerated sea level rise from ice mass loss in the polar regions is a major concern as a cause of increased coastal flooding affecting millions of people. This project will disclose a unique geological archive buried beneath the seafloor off the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica, which will reveal how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet behaved in a warmer climate in the past. The data and insights can be used to inform ice-sheet and ocean modeling used in coastal policy development. The project will also support the development of a competitive U.S. STEM workforce. Online class exercises for introductory geology classes will provide a gateway for qualified students into undergraduate research programs and this project will enhance the participation of women in science by funding the education of current female Ph.D. students. The project targets the long-term variability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet over several glacial-interglacial cycles in the early Pliocene sedimentary record drilled by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 379 in the Amundsen Sea. Data collection includes 1) the sand provenance of ice-rafted debris and shelf diamictites and its sources within the Amundsen Sea and Antarctic Peninsula region; 2) sedimentary structures and sortable silt calculations from particle size records and reconstructions of current intensities and interactions; and 3) the bulk provenance of continental rise sediments compared to existing data from the Amundsen Sea shelf with investigations into downslope currents as pathways for Antarctic Bottom Water formation. The results are analyzed within a cyclostratigraphic framework of reflectance spectroscopy and colorimetry (RSC) and X-ray fluorescence scanner (XRF) data to gain insight into orbital forcing of the high-latitude processes. The early Pliocene Climatic Optimum (PCO) ~4.5-4.1 Ma spans a major warm period recognized in deep-sea stable isotope and sea-surface temperature records. This period also coincides with a global mean sea level highstand of \u003e 20 m requiring contributions in ice mass loss from Antarctica. The following hypotheses will be tested: 1) that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated from the continental shelf break through an increase in sub iceshelf melt and iceberg calving at the onset of the PCO ~4.5 Ma, and 2) that dense shelf water cascaded down through slope channels after ~4.5 Ma as the continental shelf became exposed during glacial terminations. The project will reveal for the first time how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet operated in a warmer climate state prior to the onset of the current \u201cicehouse\u201d period ~3.3 Ma. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "USA/NSF; TERRIGENOUS SEDIMENTS; Amd/Us; SEDIMENTS; FIELD SURVEYS; Amundsen Sea; USAP-DC; AMD", "locations": "Amundsen Sea", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Passchier, Sandra", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "West Antarctic Ice-sheet Change and Paleoceanography in the Amundsen Sea Across the Pliocene Climatic Optimum", "uid": "p0010252", "west": null}, {"awards": "1644171 Blackburn, Terrence", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((162 -77.5,162.2 -77.5,162.4 -77.5,162.6 -77.5,162.8 -77.5,163 -77.5,163.2 -77.5,163.4 -77.5,163.6 -77.5,163.8 -77.5,164 -77.5,164 -77.525,164 -77.55,164 -77.575,164 -77.6,164 -77.625,164 -77.65,164 -77.675,164 -77.7,164 -77.725,164 -77.75,163.8 -77.75,163.6 -77.75,163.4 -77.75,163.2 -77.75,163 -77.75,162.8 -77.75,162.6 -77.75,162.4 -77.75,162.2 -77.75,162 -77.75,162 -77.725,162 -77.7,162 -77.675,162 -77.65,162 -77.625,162 -77.6,162 -77.575,162 -77.55,162 -77.525,162 -77.5))", "dataset_titles": "Isotopic ratios for subglacial precipitates from East Antarctica; U-Th isotopes and major elements in sediments from Taylor Valley, Antarctica", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601806", "doi": "10.15784/601806", "keywords": "Antarctica; Cryosphere; Erosion; Isotope Data; Major Elements; Soil; Taylor Glacier; Taylor Valley", "people": "Tulaczyk, Slawek; Edwards, Graham; Piccione, Gavin; Blackburn, Terrence", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "U-Th isotopes and major elements in sediments from Taylor Valley, Antarctica", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601806"}, {"dataset_uid": "200240", "doi": "10.26022/IEDA/111548 ", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "EarthChem", "science_program": null, "title": "Isotopic ratios for subglacial precipitates from East Antarctica", "url": "https://doi.org/10.26022/IEDA/111548"}], "date_created": "Fri, 13 Aug 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "A\u00a0nontechnical\u00a0description of the project The primary scientific goal of the project is to test whether Taylor Valley, Antarctica has been eroded significantly by glaciers in the last ~2 million years (Ma). Taylor Valley is one of the Dry Valleys of the Transantarctic Mountains, which are characterized by low mean annual temperatures, low precipitation, and limited erosion. These conditions have allowed fragile glacial landforms to be preserved for up to 15 Ma. Sediment eroded and deposited by glaciers is found on the valley walls and floors, with progressively younger deposits preserved at lower elevations. Scientists can date glacial deposits to understand the process and timing of past glacial erosion. Previous work in the Dry Valleys region suggested that extremely cold glaciers like Taylor Glacier, a major outlet glacier entering the valleys, were not erosive during the last several million years. This research will test a new hypothesis that glacial erosion and sediment production beneath Taylor Glacier have been active in the last few million years. This hypothesis will be tested using a new isotopic dating method called \"comminution dating\u0027 which determines when fine-grained sediment particles called silt were formed. If the sediment age is young, then the results will suggest that glacial processes have been more dynamic than previously thought. Overall, this study will increase our understanding of the nature and extent of past glaciations in Antarctica. Because the silt produced by erosion sediment is a nutrient for local ecosystems, the results will also shed light on delivery of nutrients to soils, streams, and coastal zones in high polar regions. This project will be led by an early career scientist and includes training of a Ph.D. student. A\u00a0technical description of the project There is a long-standing scientific controversy about the stability of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet with much evidence centered in the Dry Valleys region of South Victoria Land. A prevailing view of geomorphologists is that the landscape has been very stable and that the effects of glaciation have been minimal for the past ~15 Ma. This project will distinguish between two end-member scenarios of glacial erosion and deposition by Taylor Glacier, an outlet glacier of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet that terminates in Taylor Valley in the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica. In the first scenario, all valley relief is generated prior to 15 Ma when non-polar climates enabled warm-based glaciers to incise and widen ancient river channels. In this case, younger glacial deposits record advances of cold-based glaciers of decreasing ice volume and limited glacial erosion, and sediment generation resulted in glacial deposits composed primarily of older recycled sediments. In the second scenario, selective erosion of the valley floor has continued to deepen Taylor Valley but has not affected the adjacent peaks over the last 2 Ma. In this scenario, the \"bathtub rings\" of Quaternary glacial deposits situated at progressively lower elevations through time could be due to the lowering of the valley floor by subglacial erosion and with it, production of new sediment which is now incorporated into these deposits. While either scenario would result in the present-day topography, they differ in the implied evolution of regional glacial ice volume over time and the timing of both valley relief production and generation of fine-grained particles. The two scenarios will be tested by placing time constraints on fine particle production using U-series comminution dating. This new geochronologic tool exploits the loss of 234U due to alpha-recoil. The deficiency in 234U only becomes detectable in fine-grained particles with a sufficiently high surface-area-to-volume ratio which can incur appreciable 234U loss. The timing of comminution and particle size controls the magnitude of 234U loss. While this geochronologic tool is in its infancy, the scientific goal of this proposal can be achieved by resolving between ancient and recently comminuted fine particles, a binary question that the preliminary modeling and measured data show is readily resolved.", "east": 164.0, "geometry": "POINT(163 -77.625)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "ICE SHEETS; Taylor Valley", "locations": "Taylor Valley", "north": -77.5, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Blackburn, Terrence; Tulaczyk, Slawek", "platforms": null, "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "EarthChem; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -77.75, "title": "U-Series Comminution Age Constraints on Taylor Valley Erosion", "uid": "p0010243", "west": 162.0}, {"awards": "2031442 Learman, Deric", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -60,-167.5 -60,-155 -60,-142.5 -60,-130 -60,-117.5 -60,-105 -60,-92.5 -60,-80 -60,-67.5 -60,-55 -60,-55 -62,-55 -64,-55 -66,-55 -68,-55 -70,-55 -72,-55 -74,-55 -76,-55 -78,-55 -80,-67.5 -80,-80 -80,-92.5 -80,-105 -80,-117.5 -80,-130 -80,-142.5 -80,-155 -80,-167.5 -80,180 -80,178 -80,176 -80,174 -80,172 -80,170 -80,168 -80,166 -80,164 -80,162 -80,160 -80,160 -78,160 -76,160 -74,160 -72,160 -70,160 -68,160 -66,160 -64,160 -62,160 -60,162 -60,164 -60,166 -60,168 -60,170 -60,172 -60,174 -60,176 -60,178 -60,-180 -60))", "dataset_titles": "Physical and geochemical data from shelf sediments near the Antartic Pennisula", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601607", "doi": "10.15784/601607", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Peninsula; Grain Size; Grain Size Analysis; Marine Geoscience; Marine Sediments; Organic Matter Geochemistry; Sediment Core Data; Shelf Sediments; Weddell Sea", "people": "Learman, Deric", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Physical and geochemical data from shelf sediments near the Antartic Pennisula", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601607"}], "date_created": "Wed, 28 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Western Antarctica is one of the fastest warming locations on Earth. Its changing climate will lead to an increase in sea-level and will also alter regional water temperature and chemistry. These changes will directly alter the microbes that inhabit the ecosystem. Microbes are the smallest forms of life on Earth, but they are also the most abundant. They drive cycling of essential nutrients, such as carbon and nitrogen that are found in ocean sediments. In this way they form the foundation of the food chain that supports larger and more complex life. However, we do not know much about how different communities of microbes break down sediments in Antarctica and this will influence the chemistry of those waters. This research will determine how communities of microbes on the coastal shelf of Antarctica degrade complex organic sediments using genetic and chemical data. This data will identify the species in the community, what enzymes they are producing and what chemical reactions they are driving. This research will create broader impacts as the data will be used to create in-class activities that improve a student\u2019s data analysis and critical thinking skills. The data will be used in graduate, undergraduate and K-12 classrooms. This research will provide genetic and enzymatic insight into how microbial communities in benthic sediments on the coastal shelf of Antarctica degrade complex organic matter. The current understanding of how benthic microbial communities respond to and then degrade complex organic matter in Antarctica is fragmented. Recent work suggests benthic microbial communities are shaped by organic matter availability. However, those studies were observational and did not directly examine community function. A preliminary study of metagenomic data from western Antarctic marine sediments, indicates a genetic potential for organic matter degradation but functional data was not been collected. Other studies have examined either enzyme activity or metagenomic potential, but few have been able to directly connect the two. To address this gap in knowledge, this study will utilize metagenomics and metatranscriptomics, coupled with microcosm experiments, enzyme assays, and geochemical data. It will examine Antarctic microbial communities from the Ross Sea, the Bransfield Strait and Weddell Sea to document how the relationship between a communities\u2019 enzymatic activity and the genes used to degrade complex organic matter is related to sediment breakdown. The data will expand our current knowledge of microbial genetic potential and provide a solid understanding of enzyme function as it relates to degradation of complex organic matter in those marine sediments. It will thereby improve our understanding of temperature change on the chemistry of Antarctic seawater. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": 160.0, "geometry": "POINT(-127.5 -70)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS; USAP-DC; Antarctic Peninsula; BENTHIC; SHIPS; SEDIMENT CHEMISTRY; Amd/Us; AMD; USA/NSF; Weddell Sea", "locations": "Antarctic Peninsula; Weddell Sea", "north": -60.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Learman, Deric", "platforms": "WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e SHIPS", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -80.0, "title": "RAPID: Meta-genomic and Transcriptomic Investigation of Complex Organic Matter Degradation in Antarctic Benthic Sediments", "uid": "p0010235", "west": -55.0}, {"awards": "2000992 Romans, Brian", "bounds_geometry": "POINT(-172.873074 -74.274008)", "dataset_titles": "Grain size of Plio-Pleistocene continental slope and rise sediments, Hillary Canyon, Ross Sea", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601807", "doi": "10.15784/601807", "keywords": "Antarctica; Cryosphere; Grain Size; Ross Sea", "people": "Romans, Brian W.; Varela, Natalia", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Grain size of Plio-Pleistocene continental slope and rise sediments, Hillary Canyon, Ross Sea", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601807"}], "date_created": "Tue, 06 Jul 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Part I: Non-technical description: Predicting how polar ice sheets will respond to future global warming is difficult because all the processes that contribute to their melting are not well understood. This is important because the more ice on land that melts, the higher sea levels will rise. The most significant uncertainty in current estimates of sea-level rise in the coming decades is the potential contribution from the Antarctic Ice Sheet. One way to increase our knowledge about how large ice sheets respond to climate change in response to natural factors is to examine the geologic past. Natural global warming (and cooling) events in Earth\u2019s history provide examples that we can use to better understand processes, interactions, and responses we can\u2019t directly observe today. One such time period, approximately three million years ago (known as the Pliocene), was the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were as high as they are today and, therefore, represents a time period to study to better understand the ice sheet response to a warming climate. Specifically, this project is interested in understanding how ocean currents near Antarctica, which transport heat and store carbon, behaved during these past climate events. The history of past ice sheet-ocean interactions are recorded in sediments that were deposited, layer upon layer, in the deep sea offshore Antarctica. In January-February 2018, a team of scientists and crew set sail to the Ross Sea, offshore west Antarctica, on the scientific ocean drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution to recover such sediment archives. This project focuses on a sediment core from that expedition, which captures the relatively warm Pliocene time interval, as well as the subsequent transition into cooler climates typical of the past two million years. The researchers will analyze the sediment with multiple complementary measurements, including: grain size, composition, chemistry of organic matter, physical structures, microfossil type and abundance, and more. These analyses will be done by the research team, including several students, at their respective laboratories and will then integrated into a unified record of ice sheet-ocean interactions. Ultimately, the results will be used to improve modeled projections of how the Antarctic Ice Sheet could respond to future climate change. Part II: Technical description: Geological records from the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) margin demonstrate that the ice sheet oscillated in response to orbital variations in insolation (i.e., ~400, 100, 41, and 20 kyr), and it appears to be more sensitive to specific frequencies that regulate mean annual insolation (i.e., 41-kyr obliquity), particularly when the ice sheet extends into marine environments and is impacted by ocean circulation. However, the relationship between orbital forcing and the production of Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is unconstrained. Thus, a knowledge gap exists in understanding how changing insolation impacts ice marginal and Southern Ocean conditions that directly influence ventilation of the global ocean. The researchers hypothesize that insolation-driven changes directly affected the production and export of AABW to the Southern Ocean from the Pliocene through the Pleistocene. For example, obliquity amplification during the warmer Pliocene may have led to enhanced production and export of dense waters from the shelf due to reduced AIS extent, which, in turn, led to greater AABW outflow. To determine the relationship of AABW production to orbital regime, they plan to reconstruct both from a single, continuous record from the levee of Hillary Canyon, a major conduit of AABW outflow, on the Ross Sea continental rise. To test their hypothesis, they will analyze sediment from IODP Site U1524 (recovered in 2018 during International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 374) and focus on three data sets. (1) They will use the occurrence, frequency, and character of mm-scale turbidite beds as a proxy of dense-shelf-water cascading outflow and AABW production. They will estimate the down-slope flux via numerical modeling of turbidity current properties using morphology, grain size, and bed thickness as input parameters. (2) They will use grain-size data, physical properties, XRF core scanning, CT imaging, and hyperspectral imaging to guide lithofacies analysis to infer processes occurring during glacial, deglacial, and interglacial periods. Statistical techniques and optimization methods will be applied to test for astronomical forcing of sedimentary packages in order to provide a cyclostratigraphic framework and interpret the orbital-forcing regime. (3) They will use bulk sedimentary carbon and nitrogen abundance and isotope data to determine how relative contributions of terrigenous and marine organic matter change in response to orbital forcing. All of these data will be integrated with sedimentological records to deconvolve organic matter production from its deposition or remobilization due to AABW outflow as a function of the oscillating extent of the AIS. These data sets will be integrated into a unified chronostratigraphy to determine the relationship between AABW outflow and orbital-forcing scenarios under the varying climate regimes of the Plio-Pleistocene. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": -172.873074, "geometry": "POINT(-172.873074 -74.274008)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "USAP-DC; LABORATORY; AMD; USA/NSF; SEDIMENTS; Amd/Us; Ross Sea", "locations": "Ross Sea", "north": -74.274008, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Patterson, Molly; Ash, Jeanine; Kulhanek, Denise; Ash, Jeannie", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -74.274008, "title": "COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Orbital-scale Variability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Formation of Bottom Water in the Ross Sea during the Pliocene-Pleistocene", "uid": "p0010227", "west": -172.873074}, {"awards": "1851022 Fudge, Tyler; 1851094 Baker, Ian", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Code for calculating mean gradient for EDC sulfate data; EPICA Dome C Sulfate Data 7-3190m; Forward Diffusion Model used to calculate widening of volcanic layer widths; Volcanic Widths in Dome C Interglacials and Glacials", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601759", "doi": "10.15784/601759", "keywords": "Antarctica", "people": "Severi, Mirko; Fudge, T. J.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "COLDEX", "title": "EPICA Dome C Sulfate Data 7-3190m", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601759"}, {"dataset_uid": "601857", "doi": "10.15784/601857", "keywords": "Antarctica; Cryosphere", "people": "Fudge, T. J.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Forward Diffusion Model used to calculate widening of volcanic layer widths", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601857"}, {"dataset_uid": "601856", "doi": "10.15784/601856", "keywords": "Antarctica; Cryosphere", "people": "Fudge, T. J.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Code for calculating mean gradient for EDC sulfate data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601856"}, {"dataset_uid": "601855", "doi": "10.15784/601855", "keywords": "Antarctica; Cryosphere", "people": "Fudge, T. J.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Volcanic Widths in Dome C Interglacials and Glacials", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601855"}], "date_created": "Mon, 28 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The ice of the polar ice sheets is among the purest substances on Earth, yet the small amount of impurities --such as acids-- are important to how the ice flows and what can be learned from ice cores about past climate. The goal of this project is to understand the role of such acids on the deformation of polycrystalline ice by comparing the deformation behavior of pure and sulfuric acid-doped samples. Sulfuric acid was chosen both because of its importance for interpreting past climate and because it can lead to water veins in ice at low temperatures. This work will focus on the location, movement, and impact of acids in polycrystalline ice that are more complex than in single crystals of ice. By deforming samples and performing microstructural characterization, the role of acids on deformation rate, grain evolution, and the movement of the acids themselves, will be assessed. The work will lead to the education of a Ph.D. student at Dartmouth College, introduce undergraduate students to research at both the University of Washington and Dartmouth College. Despite the ubiquitous use of the constitutive relation for ice commonly referred to as \"Glen\u0027s Flow Law\", significant uncertainty exists particularly with regard to the role of impurities and the development of oriented fabrics. The aim of this project is to improve the constitutive relationship for ice by performing deformation tests and microstructural characterization of pure and sulfuric acid-doped ice. The project will focus on sulfuric acid\u0027s impact on ice viscosity, fabric evolution, and diffusivity. Sulfuric acid can have both direct and indirect effects on the mechanical properties of polycrystalline ice. The direct effects change the dislocation velocity and/or density, and the indirect effects change the grain size and fabric. The complexity and interaction of these effects means that it is not possible to understand the effects of sulfuric acid by simply examining ice core specimens. In this project, the team will deform four types of ice: lab-grown ice samples doped with similar-to-natural concentrations of sulfuric acid, lab-grown high-purity ice, layered doped and pure ice, and natural ice from Antarctic ice cores. Deformation will be performed in both uniaxial compression and simple shear. The addition of simple shear tests is critical for relating the laboratory-observed deformation behavior to the behavior of polar ice sheets where the shear strain dominates ice motion in basal ice. After deformation to strains from 5 percent up to 25 percent, the microstructural development will be assessed with methods including a variety of scanning electron microscope techniques, Raman microscopy, synchrotron-based Nano-X-ray fluorescence, and ion chromatography. These analysis techniques will allow the determination of 1) the segregation and movement of impurities, 2) the rate of grain-boundary migration, 3) the number of recrystallized grains; and 4) the full orientation of the ice crystals. The results will enable both microstructural modeling of the effects of sulfuric acid and numerical modeling of diffusion in ice cores. The net result will be a better understanding of ice deformation that improves ice-core interpretation and ice-sheet modeling. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "AMD; Polycrystalline Ice; LABORATORY; Epica Dome C; SNOW/ICE; USA/NSF; USAP-DC; Ice Core; Amd/Us", "locations": "Epica Dome C", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Science and Technology; Antarctic Glaciology; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Baker, Ian; Fudge, T. J.", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Collaborative Research: The Impact of Impurities and Stress State on Polycrystalline Ice Deformation", "uid": "p0010211", "west": null}, {"awards": "1844793 Aksoy, Mustafa", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -60,-144 -60,-108 -60,-72 -60,-36 -60,0 -60,36 -60,72 -60,108 -60,144 -60,180 -60,180 -63,180 -66,180 -69,180 -72,180 -75,180 -78,180 -81,180 -84,180 -87,180 -90,144 -90,108 -90,72 -90,36 -90,0 -90,-36 -90,-72 -90,-108 -90,-144 -90,-180 -90,-180 -87,-180 -84,-180 -81,-180 -78,-180 -75,-180 -72,-180 -69,-180 -66,-180 -63,-180 -60))", "dataset_titles": "Antarctic Firn Brightness Temperatures Measured by AMSR2 and SSMIS (Concordia, Vostok, and the Entire Ice Sheet)); In-Situ Density, Temperature, Grain Size, and Layer Thickness data for the Antarctic Ice Sheet", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601551", "doi": "10.15784/601551", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Ice Sheet", "people": "Kar, Rahul; Aksoy, Mustafa; Kaurejo, Dua", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "In-Situ Density, Temperature, Grain Size, and Layer Thickness data for the Antarctic Ice Sheet", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601551"}, {"dataset_uid": "601550", "doi": "10.15784/601550", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Ice Sheet; Satellite; Vostok", "people": "Aksoy, Mustafa; Kaurejo, Dua; Kar, Rahul", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Antarctic Firn Brightness Temperatures Measured by AMSR2 and SSMIS (Concordia, Vostok, and the Entire Ice Sheet))", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601550"}], "date_created": "Fri, 25 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This project will test the hypothesis that physical and thermal properties of Antarctic firn--partially compacted granular snow in an intermediate stage between snow and glacier ice--can be remotely measured from space. Although these properties, such as internal temperature, density, grain size, and layer thickness, are highly relevant to studies of Antarctic climate, ice-sheet dynamics, and mass balance, their measurement currently relies on sparse in-situ surveys under challenging weather conditions. Sensors on polar-orbiting satellites can observe the entire Antarctic every few days during their years-long lifetime. Consequently, the approaches developed in this study, when coupled with the advancing technologies of small and low-cost CubeSats, aim to contribute to Antarctic science and lead to cost-effective, convenient, and accurate long-term analyses of the Antarctic system while reducing the human footprint on the continent. Moreover, the project will be solely based on publicly-available datasets; thus, while contributing to interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate research and education at the grantee\u0027s institution, the project will also encourage engagement of citizen scientists through its website. The overarching goal of this project is to characterize Antarctic firn layers in terms of their thickness, physical temperature, density, and grain size through multi-frequency microwave radiometer measurements from space. Electromagnetic penetration depth changes with frequency in ice; thus, multi-frequency radiometers are able to profile firn layer properties versus depth. To achieve its objective, the project will utilize the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite constellation as a single multi-frequency microwave radiometer system with 11 frequency channels observing the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Archived in-situ measurements of Antarctic firn density, grain size, temperature, and layer thickness will be collected and separated into training and test datasets. Microwave emissions simulated using the training data will be compared to GPM constellation measurements to evaluate and improve state-of-the-art forward microwave emission models. Based on these models, the project will develop numerical retrieval algorithms for the thermal and physical properties of Antarctic firn. Results of retrievals will be validated using the test dataset, and uncertainty and error analyses will be conducted. Lastly, changes in the thermal and physical characteristics of Antarctic firn will be examined through long-term retrieval studies exploiting GPM constellation measurements. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": 180.0, "geometry": "POINT(0 -89.999)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "AMD; FIRN; Amd/Us; USA/NSF; ICE SHEETS; SNOW DENSITY; Multi-Frequency Passive Remote Sensing; University At Albany; USAP-DC; SNOW/ICE TEMPERATURE; SATELLITES; SNOW/ICE", "locations": "University At Albany", "north": -60.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Aksoy, Mustafa", "platforms": "SPACE-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e EARTH OBSERVATION SATELLITES \u003e SATELLITES", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -90.0, "title": "Characterization of Antarctic Firn by Multi-Frequency Passive Remote Sensing from Space", "uid": "p0010206", "west": -180.0}, {"awards": "1643120 Iverson, Neal", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Ice permeameter experimental parameters and results; Softening of temperate ice by interstitial water; Tertiary creep rates if temperate ice containing greater than 0.7% liquid water", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601460", "doi": "10.15784/601460", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Stream; Lab Experiment; Rheology; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice; Water Content", "people": "Iverson, Neal", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Softening of temperate ice by interstitial water", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601460"}, {"dataset_uid": "601515", "doi": "10.15784/601515", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glacier Flow; Glacier Hydrology; Glaciological Instruments And Methods; Glaciology; Ice Physics; Ice Stream; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice", "people": "Iverson, Neal; Fowler, Jacob", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Ice permeameter experimental parameters and results", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601515"}, {"dataset_uid": "601833", "doi": "10.15784/601833", "keywords": "Antarctica; Cryosphere", "people": "Iverson, Neal", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Tertiary creep rates if temperate ice containing greater than 0.7% liquid water", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601833"}], "date_created": "Wed, 23 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Iverson/1643120 This award supports a project to study temperate ice, using both experimental methods and modeling, in order to determine the effect of water on its flow resistance and structure and to study the mobility of water within the ice. A new mathematical model of ice stream flow and temperature is developed in conjunction with these experiments. The model includes water production, storage, and movement in deforming ice and their effects on flow resistance at ice stream margins and on water availability for lubrication of ice stream beds. Results will improve estimates of the evolution of ice stream speed and geometry in a warming climate, and so improve the accuracy of assessments of the contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to sea level rise over the next century. Ice streams are zones of rapid flow within the Antarctic ice sheet and are primarily responsible for its discharge of ice to the ocean and major effect on sea-level rise. Water plays a central role in the flow of ice streams. It lubricates their bases and softens their margins, where flow speeds abruptly transition from rapid to slow. Within ice stream margins some ice is \"temperate\", meaning that it is at its melting temperature and thus contains intercrystalline water that significantly softens the ice. Two postdoctoral researchers will be supported, trained, and mentored for academic careers, and three undergraduates will be introduced to research in the geosciences. This award is part the NSF/GEO-UK NERC lead agency opportunity (NSF 14-118) and is a collaboration between Iowa State University in the United States and Oxford University in the United Kingdom. The two-phase deformation of temperate ice will be studied, with the objective of determining its effect on the flow of Antarctic ice streams. The project has two components that reinforce each other. First there will be laboratory experiments in which a rotary device at Iowa State University will be used to determine relationships between the water content of temperate ice and its rheology and permeability. The second component will involve the development at Oxford University of a two-phase, fluid-dynamical theory of temperate ice and application of this theory in models of ice-stream dynamics. Results of the experiments will guide the constitutive rules and parameter ranges considered in the theory, and application of elements of the theory will improve interpretations of the experimental results. The theory and resultant models will predict the coupled distributions of temperate ice, water, stress, deformation, and basal slip that control the evolution of ice-stream speed and geometry. The modeling will result in parameterizations that allow ice streaming to be included in continental-scale models of ice sheets in a simplified but physically defensible way.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "GLACIER MOTION/ICE SHEET MOTION; Rheology; Antarctica; LABORATORY; Ice Stream; USA/NSF; USAP-DC; Lab Experiment; Water Content", "locations": "Antarctica", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Iverson, Neal; Zoet, Lucas", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "NSFGEO-NERC: Collaborative Research: Two-Phase Dynamics of Temperate Ice", "uid": "p0010197", "west": null}, {"awards": "2045611 Rasbury, Emma; 2042495 Blackburn, Terrence", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -60,-144 -60,-108 -60,-72 -60,-36 -60,0 -60,36 -60,72 -60,108 -60,144 -60,180 -60,180 -63,180 -66,180 -69,180 -72,180 -75,180 -78,180 -81,180 -84,180 -87,180 -90,144 -90,108 -90,72 -90,36 -90,0 -90,-36 -90,-72 -90,-108 -90,-144 -90,-180 -90,-180 -87,-180 -84,-180 -81,-180 -78,-180 -75,-180 -72,-180 -69,-180 -66,-180 -63,-180 -60))", "dataset_titles": " Subglacial Precipitates Record Antarctic Ice Sheet Response to Pleistocene Millennial Climate Cycles; Subglacial precipitates record Antarctic ice sheet response to Southern Ocean warming ; Thermogenic Methane Production in Antarctic Subglacial Hydrocarbon Seeps; U-Th isotopes and major elements in sediments from Taylor Valley, Antarctica", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601806", "doi": "10.15784/601806", "keywords": "Antarctica; Cryosphere; Erosion; Isotope Data; Major Elements; Soil; Taylor Glacier; Taylor Valley", "people": "Tulaczyk, Slawek; Edwards, Graham; Piccione, Gavin; Blackburn, Terrence", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "U-Th isotopes and major elements in sediments from Taylor Valley, Antarctica", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601806"}, {"dataset_uid": "601594", "doi": "10.15784/601594", "keywords": "Antarctica; East Antarctica", "people": "Blackburn, Terrence; Piccione, Gavin", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": " Subglacial Precipitates Record Antarctic Ice Sheet Response to Pleistocene Millennial Climate Cycles", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601594"}, {"dataset_uid": "601918", "doi": "10.15784/601918", "keywords": "Antarctica; Carbon Isotopes; Cryosphere; East Antarctica; Elephant Moraine; Geochronology; Isotope Data; Subglacial", "people": "Piccione, Gavin", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Thermogenic Methane Production in Antarctic Subglacial Hydrocarbon Seeps", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601918"}, {"dataset_uid": "601911", "doi": null, "keywords": "Antarctica; Cryosphere", "people": "Gagliardi, Jessica", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Subglacial precipitates record Antarctic ice sheet response to Southern Ocean warming ", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601911"}], "date_created": "Fri, 18 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Over the past century, climate science has constructed an extensive record of Earth\u2019s ice age cycles through the chemical and isotopic characterization of various geologic archives such as polar ice cores, deep-ocean sediments, and cave speleothems. These climatic archives provide an insightful picture of ice age cycles and of the related large global sea level fluctuations triggered by these significant climate rhythms. However, such records still provide limited insight as to how or which of Earth\u2019s ice sheets contributed to higher sea levels during past warm climate periods. This is of particular importance for our modern world: the Antarctic ice sheet is currently the world\u2019s largest freshwater reservoir, which, if completely melted, would raise the global sea level by over 60 meters (200 feet). Yet, geologic records of Antarctic ice sheet sensitivity to warm climates are particularly limited and difficult to obtain, because the direct records of ice sheet geometry smaller than the modern one are still buried beneath the mile-thick ice covering the continent. Therefore, it remains unclear how much this ice sheet contributed to past sea level rise during warm climate periods or how it will respond to the anticipated near-future climate warming. In the proposed research we seek to develop sub-ice chemical precipitates\u2014minerals that form in lakes found beneath the ice sheet\u2014as a climatic archive, one that records how the Antarctic ice sheet responded to past climatic change. These sub-ice mineral formations accumulated beneath the ice for over a hundred thousand years, recording the changes in chemical and isotopic subglacial properties that occur in response to climate change. Eventually these samples were eroded by the ice sheet and moved to the Antarctic ice margin where they were collected and made available to study. This research will utilize advanced geochemical, isotopic and geochronologic techniques to develop record of the Antarctica ice sheet\u2019s past response to warm climate periods, directly informing efforts to understand how Antarctica will response to future warming. Efforts to improve sea level forecasting on a warming planet have focused on determining the temperature, sea level and extent of polar ice sheets during Earth\u2019s past warm periods. Large uncertainties, however, in reconstructions of past and future sea levels, result from the poorly constrained climate sensitivity of the Antarctic Ice sheet (AIS). This research project aims to develop the use of subglacial precipitates as an archive the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) past response to climate change. The subglacial precipitates from East Antarctica form in water bodies beneath Antarctic ice and in doing so provide an entirely new and unique measure of how the AIS responds to climate change. In preliminary examination of these precipitates, we identified multiple samples consisting of cyclic opal and calcite that spans hundreds of thousands of years in duration. Our preliminary geochemical characterization of these samples indicates that the observed mineralogic changes result from a cyclic change in subglacial water compositions between isotopically and chemically distinct waters. Opal-forming waters are reduced (Ce* \u003c1 and high Fe/Mn) and exhibit elevated 234U/238U compositions similar to the saline groundwater brines found at the periphery of the AIS. Calcite-forming waters, are rather, oxidized and exhibit \u03b418O compositions consistent with derivation from the depleted polar plateau (\u003c -50 \u2030). 234U-230Th dates permit construction of a robust timeseries describing these mineralogic and compositional changes through time. Comparisons of these time series with other Antarctic climate records (e.g., ice core records) reveal that calcite forming events align with millennial scale changes in local temperature or \u201cAntarctic isotopic maximums\u201d, which represent Southern Hemisphere warm periods resulting in increased Atlantic Meridional overturing circulation. Ultimately, this project seeks to develop a comprehensive model as to how changes in the thermohaline cycle induce a glaciologic response which in turn induces a change in the composition of subglacial waters and the mineralogic phase recorded within the precipitate archive. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": 180.0, "geometry": "POINT(0 -89.999)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS; FIELD INVESTIGATION; AMD; USA/NSF; Amd/Us; USAP-DC; East Antarctica", "locations": "East Antarctica", "north": -60.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences; Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Blackburn, Terrence; Tulaczyk, Slawek; Hain, Mathis; Rasbury, Troy", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -90.0, "title": "Collaborative Research: Reconstructing East Antarctica\u2019s Past Response to Climate using Subglacial Precipitates", "uid": "p0010192", "west": -180.0}, {"awards": "1935438 McCarthy, Christine", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Thu, 03 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland are losing mass and contributing to accelerating global sea-level rise. Satellite altimetry provides precise measurement of ice-sheet volume change, but computing ice-sheet mass change\u2014the quantity relevant for estimating the ice sheet\u2019s sea-level contribution\u2014requires knowing the density of the ice sheet. The density near the ice-sheet surface also affects age estimates of air bubbles recovered in ice cores, which are a key source of information on past climate changes. Ice-sheet density is primarily controlled by the rate at which firn (snow that has persisted for a year or more on ice sheets) compacts into ice, but there is currently no widely accepted theory of how this compaction occurs. The goal of this project is thus to advance understanding of how firn densifies. The team will conduct laboratory experiments and analyze ice-penetrating radar and ice-core data from Antarctica. A key desired outcome of the project is a new model of firn densification that can be used to improve satellite-based altimetry measurements of present-day ice-sheet change and reconstructions of past climate changes from ice cores. This project will combine laboratory experiments, numerical modeling, and geophysical techniques to determine the rheology of firn as it compacts to form ice. The team will use two methods to measure firn compaction: (1) lab-based experiments and (2) analysis of ice-core and radar data. For the lab-based work, the team will conduct a suite of compaction experiments on synthetic firn samples under uni-axial strain and constant temperature and axial stress. They will also measure the grain-size evolution. By running a large number of experiments (\u003e 25), the team will constrain key parameters that determine how firn compaction rate depends on density, temperature, grain size, and axial stress. The experiments will be conducted in a table-top apparatus at temperatures as low as -40 degrees C and axial stresses up to 4 MPa. For the field-data-based component, the team will analyze ice-core and ice-penetrating radar data to produce the first coincident set of radar-derived firn compaction rates, borehole temperatures, firn densities, and firn grain sizes. Results from lab and field data will be tied together using a numerical firn compaction model. This model is formulated using conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, along with an explicit description of firn rheology and grain-size evolution. Constraints on firn rheology will be incorporated into this model and the team will use it to examine fundamental questions about how changes in the climate affect firn density. This is a crucial unknown that contributes significant measurement uncertainty in estimates of past and present climate change. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "AMD; LABORATORY; USA/NSF; COMPUTERS; USAP-DC; FIRN; Antarctic Ice Sheet; Amd/Us", "locations": "Antarctic Ice Sheet", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Arctic Natural Sciences; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "McCarthy, Christine M.; Kingslake, Jonathan", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e MODELS \u003e COMPUTERS; OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Understanding Firn Rheology Through Laboratory Compaction Experiments and Radar Data", "uid": "p0010185", "west": null}, {"awards": "1543344 Soreghan, Gerilyn", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Data and metadata for \"Quantifying surface area in muds from the Antarctic Dry Valleys: Implications for weathering in glacial systems\"", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601599", "doi": "10.15784/601599", "keywords": "Antarctica; Anza Borrego; Iceland; McMurdo Dry Valleys; Norway; Peru; Puerto Rico; Taylor Valley; Washington; Wright Valley", "people": "Demirel-Floyd, Cansu", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Data and metadata for \"Quantifying surface area in muds from the Antarctic Dry Valleys: Implications for weathering in glacial systems\"", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601599"}], "date_created": "Tue, 18 May 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "As glaciers creep across the landscape, they can act as earthmovers, plucking up rocks and grinding them into fine sediments. Glaciers have moved across the Antarctic landscape over thousands to millions of years, leaving these ground-up sediments in their wake. This study builds on pilot discoveries by the investigators that revealed remarkably large and variable measurements of surface area in glacially-derived fine-grained sediments found in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV), one of the few landscapes on the Antarctic continent not currently covered by ice. Surface area is key to chemical weathering, the process by which rock is converted to soils as ions are carried away in streams and groundwater. These chemical weathering processes are also one of the primary means by which the Earth system naturally removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Hence, high surface areas observed in sediments implies high \"weatherability\" which in turn translates to more potential carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere. Therefore, chemical weathering in high surface area glacial sediments may have significant impacts on Earth\u0027s carbon cycle. The researchers will measure the chemical and physical properties of sediments previously collected from the Dry Valleys to understand what factors lead to production of sediment with high-surface area and potential \"weather ability\" and investigate how sediment produced in these glacial systems could ultimately impact Earth\u0027s carbon budget. Results from this research will help scientists (including modelers) refine predictions of the effects of melting glaciers- and attendant exposure of glacial sediment? on atmospheric carbon levels. These results may also contribute to applied research efforts on development of carbon-dioxide removal technologies utilizing principles of rock weathering. In addition to the scientific benefits, this research will involve several students at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral levels, including science education undergraduates, thus contributing to training of the next-generation STEM workforce. Physical weathering produces fresh surfaces, greatly enhancing specific surface area (SSA) and reactive surface area (RSA) of primary minerals. Quantifying SSA and RSA of sediments is key to determining dissolution and leaching rates during natural weathering, but few data exist on distribution of sediment SA, particularly in glacial and fluvial systems. Pilot data from glacial stream systems in Taylor Valley and Wright Valley (located in the MDV) exhibit remarkably high and variable values in both SSA and RSA, values that in some cases greatly exceed values from muds in temperate glacial systems. This discovery motivates the current research, which aims to investigate the hypothesis that high and variable SAs of muds within Wright and Taylor Valleys reflect textural and/or compositional inheritance from the differing depositional settings within the MDV, biologic controls, dust additions, and/or pedogenic processes. These hypotheses will be tested by sedimentologically, mineralogically, and geochemically characterizing muds from glacially derived sediment deposited in various environments (cold vs. wet based glaciation; fluvial, lacustrine, dust, and drift deposits) and of varying age (Miocene to Modern) from the MDV and quantifying variation of SA and reactivity. Comparisons with analyzed muds from temperate glacial systems will enable polar-temperate comparisons. Analyses will focus on muds of previously collected sediment from the MDVs. Grain size and SSA will be measured by Laser Analysis and N2 adsorption BET, respectively. After carbonate removal, samples will be re-analyzed for SSA, and muds characterized geochemically. Mineralogy and bulk chemistry will also be assessed on co-occurring sand fractions, and textural attributes documented. SSA-normalized dissolution experiments will be used to compare solutes released from sediments to determine RSAs. Results will be integrated with the various sedimentologic and geochemical analyses to test the posed hypotheses. Ultimately, this research should shed light on how weathering in Antarctic systems contributes to global carbon cycling.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "USAP-DC; AMD; FIELD INVESTIGATION; USA/NSF; Dry Valleys; SEDIMENT CHEMISTRY; Amd/Us; Antarctica; Weathering", "locations": "Antarctica; Dry Valleys", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Soreghan, Gerilyn; Elwood Madden, Megan", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Quantifying surface area in muds from the Antarctic Dry Valleys: Implications for weathering in glacial systems", "uid": "p0010181", "west": null}, {"awards": "1141411 Baker, Ian", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -60,-144 -60,-108 -60,-72 -60,-36 -60,0 -60,36 -60,72 -60,108 -60,144 -60,180 -60,180 -63,180 -66,180 -69,180 -72,180 -75,180 -78,180 -81,180 -84,180 -87,180 -90,144 -90,108 -90,72 -90,36 -90,0 -90,-36 -90,-72 -90,-108 -90,-144 -90,-180 -90,-180 -87,-180 -84,-180 -81,-180 -78,-180 -75,-180 -72,-180 -69,-180 -66,-180 -63,-180 -60))", "dataset_titles": "Laboratory Experiments with H2SO4-Doped Ice; The Effects of Soluble Impurities on the Flow and Fabric of Polycrystalline Ice", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601081", "doi": "10.15784/601081", "keywords": null, "people": "Hammonds, Kevin", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Laboratory Experiments with H2SO4-Doped Ice", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601081"}, {"dataset_uid": "600380", "doi": "10.15784/600380", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice; Physical Properties; Snow", "people": "Baker, Ian", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "The Effects of Soluble Impurities on the Flow and Fabric of Polycrystalline Ice", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/600380"}], "date_created": "Fri, 09 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Baker/1141411 This award supports a project to undertake a systematic examination of the effects of soluble impurities, particularly sulfuric acid, on the creep of polycrystalline ice as function of temperature, strain rate and impurity concentration. The working hypothesis is that soluble impurities will increase the flow rate of polycrystalline ice compared to high-purity ice, that this effect will be temperature dependent and that the impurities by affecting the re-crystallization and grain growth will change the fabric of the ice. Both H2SO4-doped and high-purity poly-crystalline ice will be produced by freezing sheets of ice, breaking them up, sieving the ice particles and then sintering them in a mold into fine-grained cylindrical specimens with at least ten grains across their diameter. The resulting microstructures (dislocation structure, grain size and shape, grain boundary character and micro-structural location of the acid) will be characterized using a variety of techniques including: optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, including secondary electron imaging, electron backscattered patterns, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, electron channeling contrast imaging, and X-ray topography. The creep of both the H2SO4-doped and the high-purity polycrystalline ice will be undertaken at a range of temperatures and stresses. The ice?s response to the creep deformation (grain boundary sliding, dislocation motion, re-crystallization, grain boundary migration, impurity redistribution) will be studied using a combination of methods. The creep behavior will be modeled and related to the microstructure. Of particular interest is how impurities affect the activation energy for creep. The intellectual merit of the work is that it will lead to a better understanding of glacier ice and will enable glaciologists to model the influence of impurities on the flow and fabric development in polycrystalline ice. The broader impacts of the project include the knowledge that will be gained of the effects of impurities on the flow of ice which will allow paleoclimatologists to better interpret ice core data and will allow scientists developing predictive models to better address the flow of ice sheets under various climate change scenarios. The project will also lead to the education and training of a Ph.D. student, several undergraduates and some high school students. Results from the research will be published in refereed journals. Several undergraduates, typically two per year, will also perform the work. Dartmouth aggressively courts minority students at all degree levels, and we will seek women or minority group undergraduates for this project. The undergraduates will be supported by Dartmouth?s nationally-honored Women In Science Project or by REU funding. The undergraduates? research will integrate closely with the Ph.D. student?s studies. Hanover High School students will also be involved in the project and develop an educational kit to introduce students to the properties of ice. Results from the research will be published in refereed journals and presented at conferences.", "east": 180.0, "geometry": "POINT(0 -89.999)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "USA/NSF; USAP-DC; SNOW/ICE; Amd/Us; LABORATORY; Antarctica; AMD", "locations": "Antarctica", "north": -60.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Baker, Ian", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -90.0, "title": "The Effects of Soluble Impurities on the Flow and Fabric of Polycrystalline Ice", "uid": "p0010133", "west": -180.0}, {"awards": "1644197 Simms, Alexander", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-65 -61,-64 -61,-63 -61,-62 -61,-61 -61,-60 -61,-59 -61,-58 -61,-57 -61,-56 -61,-55 -61,-55 -61.4,-55 -61.8,-55 -62.2,-55 -62.6,-55 -63,-55 -63.4,-55 -63.8,-55 -64.2,-55 -64.6,-55 -65,-56 -65,-57 -65,-58 -65,-59 -65,-60 -65,-61 -65,-62 -65,-63 -65,-64 -65,-65 -65,-65 -64.6,-65 -64.2,-65 -63.8,-65 -63.4,-65 -63,-65 -62.6,-65 -62.2,-65 -61.8,-65 -61.4,-65 -61))", "dataset_titles": "Electron Microprobe Analysis of feldspar separates from rock and sediment OSL samples from Joinville and Livingston Island Beaches; Granulometry of Joinville and Livingston Island beaches; Ground-Penetrating Radar data from Livingston Island in the Antarctic Peninsula; Ground Penetrating Radar Profiles from Beaches on Joinville Island, Antarctic Peninsula; Joinville and Livingston Islands - rock and sediment OSL ages; OSL data - Joinville and Livingston Islands - Raw data; Radiocarbon Ages from Beaches on Joinville Island, Antarctic Peninsula", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601400", "doi": "10.15784/601400", "keywords": "Antarctica; Grain Size; Granulometry; Joinville Island; Livingston Island; LMG0412; Raised Beaches", "people": "Theilen, Brittany; Simms, Alexander", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Granulometry of Joinville and Livingston Island beaches", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601400"}, {"dataset_uid": "601632", "doi": "10.15784/601632", "keywords": "Antarctica; Joinville Island", "people": "Simms, Alexander", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Ground Penetrating Radar Profiles from Beaches on Joinville Island, Antarctic Peninsula", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601632"}, {"dataset_uid": "601534", "doi": "10.15784/601534", "keywords": "Antarctica; Geochronology; Joinville Island; Livingston Island; OSL dating; Raised Beaches", "people": "DeWitt, Regina", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Joinville and Livingston Islands - rock and sediment OSL ages", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601534"}, {"dataset_uid": "601633", "doi": "10.15784/601633", "keywords": "Antarctica; Joinville Island", "people": "Simms, Alexander", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Ground-Penetrating Radar data from Livingston Island in the Antarctic Peninsula", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601633"}, {"dataset_uid": "601531", "doi": "10.15784/601531", "keywords": "Antarctica; Geochronology; Joinville Island; Livingston Island; OSL dating; Raised Beaches", "people": "DeWitt, Regina", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Electron Microprobe Analysis of feldspar separates from rock and sediment OSL samples from Joinville and Livingston Island Beaches", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601531"}, {"dataset_uid": "601532", "doi": "10.15784/601532", "keywords": "Antarctica; Geochronology; Joinville Island; Livingston Island; OSL dating; Raised Beaches", "people": "DeWitt, Regina", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "OSL data - Joinville and Livingston Islands - Raw data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601532"}, {"dataset_uid": "601634", "doi": "10.15784/601634", "keywords": "Antarctica; Joinville Island; Raised Beaches; Sea Level", "people": "Simms, Alexander", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Radiocarbon Ages from Beaches on Joinville Island, Antarctic Peninsula", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601634"}], "date_created": "Thu, 08 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Nontechnical Description Glacier ice loss from Antarctica has the potential to lead to a significant rise in global sea level. One line of evidence for accelerated glacier ice loss has been an increase in the rate at which the land has been rising across the Antarctic Peninsula as measured by GPS receivers. However, GPS observations of uplift are limited to the last two decades. One goal of this study is to determine how these newly observed rates of uplift compare to average rates of uplift across the Antarctic Peninsula over a longer time interval. Researchers will reconstruct past sea levels using the age and elevation of ancient beaches now stranded above sea level on the low-lying coastal hills of the Antarctica Peninsula to determine the rate of uplift over the last 5,000 years. The researchers will also analyze the structure of the beaches using ground-penetrating radar and the characteristics of beach sediments to understand how sea-level rise and past climate changes are recorded in beach deposits. The benefits of these new records will be threefold: (1) they will help determine the natural variability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and relative sea level (2) they will provide new insight about uplift and the structure of the Earth\u0027s interior; and 3) they will help researchers refine the methods used to determine the age of geologic deposits. The study results will be shared in outreach events at K-12 schools and with visitors of the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum. Three graduate students will be supported through this project. Technical description Paleo sea-level data is critical for reconstructing the size and extent of past ice sheets, documenting increased uplift following glacial retreat, and correcting gravity-based measurements of ice-mass loss for the impacts of post-glacial rebound. However, there are only 14 sites with relative sea-level data for Antarctica compared to over 500 sites used in a recent study of the North American Ice-Sheet complex. The purpose of this project is to use optically stimulated luminescence to date a series of newly discovered raised beaches along the eastern Antarctic Peninsula and an already known, but only preliminarily dated, series of raised beaches in the South Shetland Islands. Data to be collected at the raised beaches include the age and elevation, ground-penetrating radar profiles, and the roundness of cobbles and the lithology of ice-rafted debris. The study will test three hypotheses: (1) uplift rates have increased in modern times relative to the late Holocene across the Antarctic Peninsula, (2) the sea-level history at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula is distinctly different than that of the South Shetland Islands, and (3) cobble roundness and the source of ice-rafted debris on raised beaches varied systematically through time reflecting the climate history of the northern Antarctic Peninsula.", "east": -55.0, "geometry": "POINT(-60 -63)", "instruments": "EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Antarctic Peninsula; COASTAL LANDFORMS/PROCESSES; USAP-DC; SEA LEVEL RECONSTRUCTION; South Shetland Islands; AMD; FIELD INVESTIGATION; Amd/Us; USA/NSF", "locations": "South Shetland Islands; Antarctic Peninsula", "north": -61.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Simms, Alexander; DeWitt, Regina", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -65.0, "title": "Collaborative Research: New Constraints on Post-Glacial Rebound and Holocene Environmental History along the Northern Antarctic Peninsula from Raised Beaches", "uid": "p0010132", "west": -65.0}, {"awards": "1738942 Wellner, Julia", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-120 -71,-118 -71,-116 -71,-114 -71,-112 -71,-110 -71,-108 -71,-106 -71,-104 -71,-102 -71,-100 -71,-100 -71.5,-100 -72,-100 -72.5,-100 -73,-100 -73.5,-100 -74,-100 -74.5,-100 -75,-100 -75.5,-100 -76,-102 -76,-104 -76,-106 -76,-108 -76,-110 -76,-112 -76,-114 -76,-116 -76,-118 -76,-120 -76,-120 -75.5,-120 -75,-120 -74.5,-120 -74,-120 -73.5,-120 -73,-120 -72.5,-120 -72,-120 -71.5,-120 -71))", "dataset_titles": "A multibeam-bathymetric compilation for the southern Amundsen Sea shelf, 1999-2019; Expedition Data of NBP2002; Expedition Data of NBP2202; NBP1902 Expedition data; Physical and geochemical data from sediment cores collected offshore Thwaites Glacier", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "200161", "doi": "10.5285/F2DFEDA9-BF44-4EF5-89A3-EE5E434A385C", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "UK PDC", "science_program": null, "title": "A multibeam-bathymetric compilation for the southern Amundsen Sea shelf, 1999-2019", "url": "https://doi.org/10.5285/F2DFEDA9-BF44-4EF5-89A3-EE5E434A385C"}, {"dataset_uid": "200311", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data of NBP2202", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP2202"}, {"dataset_uid": "200248", "doi": null, "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data of NBP2002", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP2002"}, {"dataset_uid": "200083", "doi": "10.7284/908147", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "NBP1902 Expedition data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP1902"}, {"dataset_uid": "601514", "doi": "10.15784/601514", "keywords": "Antarctica; Chemistry:sediment; Chemistry:Sediment; Glaciomarine Sediment; Grain Size; Magnetic Susceptibility; Marine Geoscience; Marine Sediments; NBP1902; NBP2002; Physical Properties; R/v Nathaniel B. Palmer; Sediment Core Data; Thwaites Glacier; Trace Elements; XRF", "people": "Lepp, Allison", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "Thwaites (ITGC)", "title": "Physical and geochemical data from sediment cores collected offshore Thwaites Glacier", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601514"}], "date_created": "Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This project contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. Satellite observations extending over the last 25 years show that Thwaites Glacier is rapidly thinning and accelerating. Over this same period, the Thwaites grounding line, the point at which the glacier transitions from sitting on the seabed to floating, has retreated. Oceanographic studies demonstrate that the main driver of these changes is incursion of warm water from the deep ocean that flows beneath the floating ice shelf and causes basal melting. The period of satellite observation is not long enough to determine how a large glacier, such as Thwaites, responds to long-term and near-term changes in the ocean or the atmosphere. As a result, records of glacier change from the pre-satellite era are required to build a holistic understanding of glacier behavior. Ocean-floor sediments deposited at the retreating grounding line and further offshore contain these longer-term records of changes in the glacier and the adjacent ocean. An additional large unknown is the topography of the seafloor and how it influences interactions of landward-flowing warm water with Thwaites Glacier and affects its stability. Consequently, this project focuses on the seafloor offshore from Thwaites Glacier and the records of past glacial and ocean change contained in the sediments deposited by the glacier and surrounding ocean. Uncertainty in model projections of the future of Thwaites Glacier will be significantly reduced by cross-disciplinary investigations seaward of the current grounding line, including extracting the record of decadal to millennial variations in warm water incursion, determining the pre-satellite era history of grounding-line migration, and constraining the bathymetric pathways that control flow of warm water to the grounding line. Sedimentary records and glacial landforms preserved on the seafloor will allow reconstruction of changes in drivers and the glacial response to them over a range of timescales, thus providing reference data that can be used to initiate and evaluate the reliability of models. Such data will further provide insights on the influence of poorly understood processes on marine ice sheet dynamics. This project will include an integrated suite of marine and sub-ice shelf research activities aimed at establishing boundary conditions seaward of the Thwaites Glacier grounding line, obtaining records of the external drivers of change, improving knowledge of processes leading to collapse of Thwaites Glacier, and determining the history of past change in grounding line migration and conditions at the glacier base. These objectives will be achieved through high-resolution geophysical surveys of the seafloor and analysis of sediments collected in cores from the inner shelf seaward of the Thwaites Glacier grounding line using ship-based equipment, and from beneath the ice shelf using a corer deployed through the ice shelf via hot water drill holes. This award reflects NSF\u0027s statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation\u0027s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.", "east": -100.0, "geometry": "POINT(-110 -73.5)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e SEDIMENT CORERS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e ACOUSTIC SOUNDERS \u003e ECHO SOUNDERS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "BATHYMETRY; Antarctica; MARINE SEDIMENTS; AMD; MARINE GEOPHYSICS; Amd/Us; USAP-DC; Thwaites Glacier; LABORATORY; Southern Ocean; ICE SHEETS; USA/NSF; GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS; R/V NBP", "locations": "Antarctica; Southern Ocean; Thwaites Glacier", "north": -71.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Wellner, Julia; Larter, Robert; Minzoni, Rebecca; Hogan, Kelly; Anderson, John; Graham, Alastair; Hillenbrand, Claus-Dieter; Nitsche, Frank O.; Simkins, Lauren; Smith, James A.", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY; WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V NBP", "repo": "UK PDC", "repositories": "R2R; UK PDC; USAP-DC", "science_programs": "Thwaites (ITGC)", "south": -76.0, "title": "NSF-NERC: THwaites Offshore Research (THOR)", "uid": "p0010062", "west": -120.0}, {"awards": "1443733 Winsor, Peter; 1443680 Smith, Craig; 1443705 Vernet, Maria", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-66 -64,-65.6 -64,-65.2 -64,-64.8 -64,-64.4 -64,-64 -64,-63.6 -64,-63.2 -64,-62.8 -64,-62.4 -64,-62 -64,-62 -64.1,-62 -64.2,-62 -64.3,-62 -64.4,-62 -64.5,-62 -64.6,-62 -64.7,-62 -64.8,-62 -64.9,-62 -65,-62.4 -65,-62.8 -65,-63.2 -65,-63.6 -65,-64 -65,-64.4 -65,-64.8 -65,-65.2 -65,-65.6 -65,-66 -65,-66 -64.9,-66 -64.8,-66 -64.7,-66 -64.6,-66 -64.5,-66 -64.4,-66 -64.3,-66 -64.2,-66 -64.1,-66 -64))", "dataset_titles": "Andvord Bay Glacier Timelapse; Andvord Bay sediment core data collected during the FjordEco project (LMG1510 and NBP1603); Expedition Data; Expedition data of LMG1702; FjordEco Phytoplankton Ecology Dataset in Andvord Bay ; Fjord-Eco Sediment OrgC OrgN Data - Craig Smith; LMG1510 Expedition data; NBP1603 Expedition data; Sediment macrofaunal abundance and family richness from inner Andvord Bay to the open continental shelf", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601193", "doi": "10.15784/601193", "keywords": "Antarctica; Geochronology; Grain Size; LMG1510; NBP1603; Sediment; Sediment Core Data", "people": "Nittrouer, Charles; Eidam, Emily; Smith, Craig; Homolka, Khadijah", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Andvord Bay sediment core data collected during the FjordEco project (LMG1510 and NBP1603)", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601193"}, {"dataset_uid": "601157", "doi": "10.15784/601157", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice", "people": "Smith, Craig", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "FjordEco", "title": "Fjord-Eco Sediment OrgC OrgN Data - Craig Smith", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601157"}, {"dataset_uid": "601111", "doi": "10.15784/601111", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Peninsula; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Iceberg; Photo; Photo/video; Photo/Video", "people": "Truffer, Martin; Winsor, Peter", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "FjordEco", "title": "Andvord Bay Glacier Timelapse", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601111"}, {"dataset_uid": "200040", "doi": "10.7284/907085", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "LMG1510 Expedition data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG1510"}, {"dataset_uid": "601236", "doi": "10.15784/601236", "keywords": "Abundance; Andvord Bay; Antarctica; Antarctic Peninsula; Biota; Fjord; LMG1510; Marine Sediments; Oceans; Polychaete; Polychaete Family Richness; R/v Laurence M. Gould; Sediment Core Data; Sediment Macrofauna", "people": "Smith, Craig", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "FjordEco", "title": "Sediment macrofaunal abundance and family richness from inner Andvord Bay to the open continental shelf", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601236"}, {"dataset_uid": "200039", "doi": "10.7284/907205", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "NBP1603 Expedition data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP1603"}, {"dataset_uid": "002733", "doi": null, "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition data of LMG1702", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG1702"}, {"dataset_uid": "601158", "doi": "10.15784/601158", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Peninsula; Biota; Ecology; Fjord; Phytoplankton", "people": "Manck, Lauren; Vernet, Maria; Pan, B. Jack; Forsch, Kiefer", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "FjordEco", "title": "FjordEco Phytoplankton Ecology Dataset in Andvord Bay ", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601158"}, {"dataset_uid": "001366", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG1702"}, {"dataset_uid": "000402", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/LMG1702"}], "date_created": "Wed, 13 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Marine communities along the western Antarctic Peninsula are highly productive ecosystems which support a diverse assemblage of charismatic animals such as penguins, seals, and whales as well as commercial fisheries such as that on Antarctic krill. Fjords (long, narrow, deep inlets of the sea between high cliffs) along the central coast of the Peninsula appear to be intense, potentially climate sensitive, hotspots of biological production and biodiversity, yet the structure and dynamics of these fjord ecosystems are very poorly understood. Because of this intense biological activity and the charismatic fauna it supports, these fjords are also major destinations for a large Antarctic tourism industry. This project is an integrated field and modeling program to evaluate physical oceanographic processes, glacial inputs, water column community dynamics, and seafloor bottom community structure and function in these important yet little understood fjord systems. These Antarctic fjords have characteristics that are substantially different from well-studied Arctic fjords, likely yielding much different responses to climate warming. This project will provide major new insights into the dynamics and climate sensitivity of Antarctic fjord ecosystems, highlighting contrasts with Arctic sub-polar fjords, and potentially transforming our understanding of the ecological role of fjords in the rapidly warming west Antarctic coastal marine landscape. The project will also further the NSF goal of training new generations of scientists, providing scientific training for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students. This includes the unique educational opportunity for undergraduates to participate in research cruises in Antarctica and the development of a novel summer graduate course on fjord ecosystems. Internet based outreach activities will be enhanced and extended by the participation of a professional photographer who will produce magazine articles, websites, radio broadcasts, and other forms of public outreach on the fascinating Antarctic ecosystem. This project will involve a 15-month field program to test mechanistic hypotheses concerning oceanographic and glaciological forcing, and phytoplankton and benthic community response in the Antarctic fjords. Those efforts will be followed by a coupled physical/biological modeling effort to evaluate the drivers of biogeochemical cycles in the fjords and to explore their potential sensitivity to enhanced meltwater and sediment inputs. Fieldwork over two oceanographic cruises will utilize moorings, weather stations, and glacial, sea-ice and seafloor time-lapse cameras to obtain an integrated view of fjord ecosystem processes. The field team will also make multiple shipboard measurements and will use towed and autonomous underwater vehicles to intensively evaluate fjord ecosystem structure and function during spring/summer and autumn seasons. These integrated field and modeling studies are expected to elucidate fundamental properties of water column and sea bottom ecosystem structure and function in the fjords, and to identify key physical-chemical-glaciological forcing in these rapidly warming ecosystems.", "east": -62.0, "geometry": "POINT(-64 -64.5)", "instruments": "NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e CTD; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CHEMICAL METERS/ANALYZERS \u003e FLUOROMETERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e RECORDERS/LOGGERS \u003e AWS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e ACOUSTIC SOUNDERS \u003e ECHO SOUNDERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e THERMOSALINOGRAPHS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "OCEAN CURRENTS; Bellingshausen Sea; LMG1702; COMMUNITY DYNAMICS; FJORDS; R/V LMG; MARINE ECOSYSTEMS; USAP-DC; ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS; ANIMALS/INVERTEBRATES; SEDIMENTATION; NOT APPLICABLE; BENTHIC", "locations": "Bellingshausen Sea", "north": -64.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems; Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems; Antarctic Integrated System Science; Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Winsor, Peter; Truffer, Martin; Smith, Craig; Powell, Brian; Merrifield, Mark; Vernet, Maria; Kohut, Josh", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE; WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V LMG", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "R2R; USAP-DC", "science_programs": "FjordEco", "south": -65.0, "title": "Collaborative Research: Fjord Ecosystem Structure and Function on the West Antarctic Peninsula - Hotspots of Productivity and Biodiversity? (FjordEco)", "uid": "p0010010", "west": -66.0}, {"awards": "1246378 Shevenell, Amelia", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((70 -68,70.5 -68,71 -68,71.5 -68,72 -68,72.5 -68,73 -68,73.5 -68,74 -68,74.5 -68,75 -68,75 -68.2,75 -68.4,75 -68.6,75 -68.8,75 -69,75 -69.2,75 -69.4,75 -69.6,75 -69.8,75 -70,74.5 -70,74 -70,73.5 -70,73 -70,72.5 -70,72 -70,71.5 -70,71 -70,70.5 -70,70 -70,70 -69.8,70 -69.6,70 -69.4,70 -69.2,70 -69,70 -68.8,70 -68.6,70 -68.4,70 -68.2,70 -68))", "dataset_titles": "Anvers Trough Foraminifer Stable Isotope data; Geochemical and sedimentologic data from NBP01-01 JPC-34", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601064", "doi": "10.15784/601064", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Peninsula; Anvers Trough; Chemistry:sediment; Chemistry:Sediment; Foraminifera; Geochemistry; Isotope; LMG1211; LMG1311; Marine Sediments; Oceans; Paleoclimate; Sample/collection Description; Sample/Collection Description; Southern Ocean", "people": "Shevenell, Amelia", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Anvers Trough Foraminifer Stable Isotope data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601064"}, {"dataset_uid": "601180", "doi": "10.15784/601180", "keywords": "Antarctica; Be-10; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Grain Size; Late Quaternary; Magnetic Susceptibility; Mass Spectrometry; NBP0101; Paleoenvironment; Prydz Bay; Radiocarbon; R/v Nathaniel B. Palmer; Sediment; Sediment Core; Sediment Core Data", "people": "Shevenell, Amelia", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Geochemical and sedimentologic data from NBP01-01 JPC-34", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601180"}], "date_created": "Fri, 27 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Intellectual Merit: Southern Ocean processes play an important role in Late Quaternary glacial-interglacial climate change. However, the direct influence of newly upwelled warm nutrient-rich Circumpolar Deep Water on the Antarctic cryosphere remains speculative. The PI proposes to test the hypothesis that Circumpolar Deep Water-derived ocean heat negatively impacts the mass-balance of Antarctica?s ice sheets during deglaciations using precisely dated late Quaternary paleoceanographic studies of Antarctic margin sediments and a suite of geochemical proxies measured on three existing glacial marine sediment cores from the Prydz Channel, Antarctica. Specifically, the PI will use these data to reconstruct the Late Quaternary history of the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system; evaluate the timing, speed, and style of retreat of the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system during the last deglaciation, and to assess the impact of Circumpolar Deep Water intrusions on the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system in the Late Quaternary. Diatom bound radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence techniques will be used to obtain precise stratigraphic age control for the Prydz Channel siliceous muddy ooze intervals. In addition, the PI will measure sedimentary 10Be concentrations to determine the origin of the siliceous muddy ooze units and to track past changes in the position of the ice shelf front. Broader impacts: This proposal will support an early career female scientist and will provide professional development and research experiences for women/minority graduate and undergraduate students. The PI will take advantage of USF?s Oceanography Camp for Girls.", "east": 75.0, "geometry": "POINT(72.5 -69)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e SEDIMENT CORERS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Amd/Us; R/V NBP; USAP-DC", "locations": null, "north": -68.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Shevenell, Amelia", "platforms": "WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V NBP", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -70.0, "title": "Late Quaternary Evolution of the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf System, Prydz Bay, Antarctica", "uid": "p0000381", "west": 70.0}, {"awards": "1246378 Shevenell, Amelia", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-65.32 -64.15,-65.309 -64.15,-65.298 -64.15,-65.287 -64.15,-65.276 -64.15,-65.265 -64.15,-65.254 -64.15,-65.243 -64.15,-65.232 -64.15,-65.221 -64.15,-65.21 -64.15,-65.21 -64.186,-65.21 -64.222,-65.21 -64.258,-65.21 -64.294,-65.21 -64.33,-65.21 -64.366,-65.21 -64.402,-65.21 -64.438,-65.21 -64.474,-65.21 -64.51,-65.221 -64.51,-65.232 -64.51,-65.243 -64.51,-65.254 -64.51,-65.265 -64.51,-65.276 -64.51,-65.287 -64.51,-65.298 -64.51,-65.309 -64.51,-65.32 -64.51,-65.32 -64.474,-65.32 -64.438,-65.32 -64.402,-65.32 -64.366,-65.32 -64.33,-65.32 -64.294,-65.32 -64.258,-65.32 -64.222,-65.32 -64.186,-65.32 -64.15))", "dataset_titles": "Anvers Trough Foraminifer Stable Isotope data; Geochemical and sedimentologic data from NBP01-01 JPC-34", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601064", "doi": "10.15784/601064", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Peninsula; Anvers Trough; Chemistry:sediment; Chemistry:Sediment; Foraminifera; Geochemistry; Isotope; LMG1211; LMG1311; Marine Sediments; Oceans; Paleoclimate; Sample/collection Description; Sample/Collection Description; Southern Ocean", "people": "Shevenell, Amelia", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Anvers Trough Foraminifer Stable Isotope data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601064"}, {"dataset_uid": "601180", "doi": "10.15784/601180", "keywords": "Antarctica; Be-10; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Grain Size; Late Quaternary; Magnetic Susceptibility; Mass Spectrometry; NBP0101; Paleoenvironment; Prydz Bay; Radiocarbon; R/v Nathaniel B. Palmer; Sediment; Sediment Core; Sediment Core Data", "people": "Shevenell, Amelia", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Geochemical and sedimentologic data from NBP01-01 JPC-34", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601180"}], "date_created": "Fri, 27 Oct 2017 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Intellectual Merit: Southern Ocean processes play an important role in Late Quaternary glacial-interglacial climate change. However, the direct influence of newly upwelled warm nutrient-rich Circumpolar Deep Water on the Antarctic cryosphere remains speculative. The PI proposes to test the hypothesis that Circumpolar Deep Water-derived ocean heat negatively impacts the mass-balance of Antarctica?s ice sheets during deglaciations using precisely dated late Quaternary paleoceanographic studies of Antarctic margin sediments and a suite of geochemical proxies measured on three existing glacial marine sediment cores from the Prydz Channel, Antarctica. Specifically, the PI will use these data to reconstruct the Late Quaternary history of the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system; evaluate the timing, speed, and style of retreat of the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system during the last deglaciation, and to assess the impact of Circumpolar Deep Water intrusions on the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system in the Late Quaternary. Diatom bound radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence techniques will be used to obtain precise stratigraphic age control for the Prydz Channel siliceous muddy ooze intervals. In addition, the PI will measure sedimentary 10Be concentrations to determine the origin of the siliceous muddy ooze units and to track past changes in the position of the ice shelf front. Broader impacts: This proposal will support an early career female scientist and will provide professional development and research experiences for women/minority graduate and undergraduate students. The PI will take advantage of USF?s Oceanography Camp for Girls.", "east": -65.21, "geometry": "POINT(-65.265 -64.33)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e SEDIMENT CORERS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Amd/Us; R/V NBP; USAP-DC", "locations": null, "north": -64.15, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Shevenell, Amelia", "platforms": "WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V NBP", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -64.51, "title": "Late Quaternary Evolution of the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf System, Prydz Bay, Antarctica", "uid": "p0000381", "west": -65.32}, {"awards": "1542778 Alley, Richard", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "c-Axis Fabric of the South Pole Ice Core, SPC14; South Pole Ice Core (SPC14) Bubble Number-Density Data; South Pole Ice Core (SPIcecore) Visual Observations", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601088", "doi": "10.15784/601088", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core; Ice Core Records; Physical Properties; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice; South Pole; Visual Observations", "people": "Fegyveresi, John; Alley, Richard", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "SPICEcore", "title": "South Pole Ice Core (SPIcecore) Visual Observations", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601088"}, {"dataset_uid": "601057", "doi": "10.15784/601057", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; South Pole; SPICEcore", "people": "Voigt, Donald E.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "SPICEcore", "title": "c-Axis Fabric of the South Pole Ice Core, SPC14", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601057"}, {"dataset_uid": "601880", "doi": "10.15784/601880", "keywords": "Antarctic; Antarctica; Bubble Number Density; Cryosphere; Glaciers; Glaciology; Ice; Ice Core Data; Ice Core Records; NSF-ICF Microtome and Photography Stage; Paleoclimate; Physical Properties; Snow; South Pole", "people": "Fegyveresi, John", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "SPICEcore", "title": "South Pole Ice Core (SPC14) Bubble Number-Density Data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601880"}], "date_created": "Fri, 29 Sep 2017 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Alley/1542778 This award supports a three-year effort to study physical properties of the South Pole ice core to help provide a high-time-resolution history of trace gases and other paleoclimatic indicators from an especially cold site with high preservation potential for important signals. The physical-properties studies include visual inspection to identify any flow disturbances and for identifying annual layers and other features, and combined bubble, grain and ice crystal orientation studies to better understand the processes occurring in the ice that affect the climate record and the ice-sheet behavior. Success of these efforts will provide necessary support for dating and quality control to others studying the ice core, as well as determining the climate history of the site, flow state, and key physical processes in ice. The intellectual merits of the project include better understanding of physical processes, paleoclimatic reconstruction, dating of the ice, and quality assurance. Visual inspection of the core will help identify evidence of flow disturbances that would disrupt the integrity of the climate record and will reveal volcanic horizons and other features of interest. Annual layer counting will be conducted to help estimate accumulation rate over time as recorded in the ice core. Measurements of C-axis fabric, grain size and shapes, and bubble characteristics will provide information about processes occurring in the ice sheet as well as the history of ice flow, current flow state and how the ice is flowing and how easily it will flow in the future. Analysis of this data in conjunction with microCT data will help to reveal grain-scale processes. The broader impacts of the project include support for an early-career, post-doctoral researcher, and improved paleoclimatic data of societal relevance. The results will be incorporated into the active program of education and outreach which have educated many students, members of the public and policy makers through the sharing of information and educational materials about all aspects of ice core science and paleoclimate.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Alley, Richard; Fegyveresi, John; Voigt, Donald E.", "platforms": "Not provided", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": "SPICEcore", "south": null, "title": "Climate History and Flow Processes from Physical Analyses of the SPICECORE South Pole Ice Core", "uid": "p0000141", "west": null}, {"awards": "0539578 Alley, Richard; 0539232 Cuffey, Kurt", "bounds_geometry": "POINT(112.083 -79.467)", "dataset_titles": "Grain Size Full Population Dataset from WDC06A Core; Temperature Profile of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide Deep Borehole; Temperature Reconstruction at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide; Updated (2017) bubble number-density, size, shape, and modeled paleoclimate data; WAIS Divide Ice Core Vertical Thin Section Low-resolution Digital Imagery; WAIS Divide Surface and Snow-pit Data, 2009-2013; WDC 06A Mean Grain Size Data", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "609654", "doi": "10.7265/N5GM858X", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Ice Core Records; Photo/video; Photo/Video; Thin Sections; WAIS Divide; WAIS Divide Ice Core", "people": "Cravens, Eric D.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "title": "WAIS Divide Ice Core Vertical Thin Section Low-resolution Digital Imagery", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609654"}, {"dataset_uid": "609655", "doi": "10.7265/N5VX0DG0", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Grain Size; Ice Core Records; WAIS Divide; WAIS Divide Ice Core", "people": "Cravens, Eric D.; Fitzpatrick, Joan", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Grain Size Full Population Dataset from WDC06A Core", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609655"}, {"dataset_uid": "601079", "doi": "10.15784/601079", "keywords": "Antarctica; Atmosphere; AWS; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; Meteorology; Physical Properties; Snow Pit; Temperature; WAIS Divide; WAIS Divide Ice Core; Weatherstation", "people": "Fegyveresi, John; Alley, Richard", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "title": "WAIS Divide Surface and Snow-pit Data, 2009-2013", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601079"}, {"dataset_uid": "609656", "doi": "10.7265/N5MC8X08", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Grain Size; Ice Core Records; WAIS Divide; WAIS Divide Ice Core", "people": "Fitzpatrick, Joan; Cravens, Eric D.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "WDC 06A Mean Grain Size Data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609656"}, {"dataset_uid": "609550", "doi": "10.7265/N5V69GJW", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; Temperature; WAIS Divide; WAIS Divide Ice Core", "people": "Cuffey, Kurt M.; Clow, Gary D.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Temperature Profile of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide Deep Borehole", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609550"}, {"dataset_uid": "600377", "doi": "10.15784/600377", "keywords": "Antarctica; Chemistry:fluid; Chemistry:Fluid; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; Nitrogen; Paleoclimate; Temperature; WAIS Divide; WAIS Divide Ice Core", "people": "Cuffey, Kurt M.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "title": "Temperature Reconstruction at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/600377"}, {"dataset_uid": "601224", "doi": "10.15784/601224", "keywords": "Antarctic; Antarctica; Bubble Number Density; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice; Ice Core Data; Ice Core Records; NSF-ICF Microtome and Photography Stage; Paleoclimate; Physical Properties; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice; WAIS Divide Ice Core; West Antarctic Ice Sheet", "people": "Voigt, Donald E.; Fitzpatrick, Joan; Spencer, Matthew; Alley, Richard; Fegyveresi, John", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "title": "Updated (2017) bubble number-density, size, shape, and modeled paleoclimate data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601224"}], "date_created": "Thu, 12 Jan 2017 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "0539578\u003cbr/\u003eAlley \u003cbr/\u003eThis award supports a five-year collaborative project to study the physical-properties of the planned deep ice core and the temperature of the ice in the divide region of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The intellectual merit of the proposed research is to provide fundamental information on the state of the ice sheet, to validate the integrity of the climate record, to help reconstruct the climate record, and to understand the flow state and history of the ice sheet. This information will initially be supplied to other investigators and then to the public and to appropriate databases, and will be published in the refereed scientific literature. The objectives of the proposed research are to aid in dating of the core through counting of annual layers, to identify any exceptionally warm intervals in the past through counting of melt layers, to learn as much as possible about the flow state and history of the ice through measurement of size, shape and arrangements of bubbles, clathrate inclusions, grains and their c-axes, to identify any flow disturbances through these indicators, and to learn the history of snow accumulation and temperature from analyses of bubbles and borehole temperatures combined with flow modeling and use of data from other collaborators. These results will then be synthesized and communicated. Failure to examine cores can lead to erroneous identification of flow features as climate changes, so careful examination is required. Independent reconstruction of accumulation rate provides important data on climate change, and improves confidence in interpretation of other climate indicators. Borehole temperatures are useful recorders of temperature history. Flow state and history are important in understanding climate history and potential contribution of ice to sea-level change. By contributing to all of these and additional issues, the proposed research will be of considerable value. The broader impacts of the research include making available to the public improved knowledge on societally central questions involving abrupt climate change and sea-level rise. The project will also contribute to the education of advanced students, will utilize results in education of introductory students, and will make vigorous efforts in outreach, informal science education, and supplying information to policy-makers as requested, thus contributing to a more-informed society.", "east": 112.083, "geometry": "POINT(112.083 -79.467)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e CAMERAS \u003e CAMERA; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e TEMPERATURE/HUMIDITY SENSORS \u003e THERMISTORS \u003e THERMISTORS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "LABORATORY; WAIS Divide; Ice Core; Temperature Profiles; FIELD SURVEYS; Bubble Number Density; GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS; Wais Divide-project", "locations": "WAIS Divide", "north": -79.467, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Fitzpatrick, Joan; Alley, Richard; Fegyveresi, John; Clow, Gary D.; Cuffey, Kurt M.; Cravens, Eric D.", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS; OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "south": -79.467, "title": "Collaborative Research: Physical Properties of the WAIS Divide Deep Core", "uid": "p0000038", "west": 112.083}, {"awards": "1043528 Alley, Richard; 1043313 Spencer, Matthew", "bounds_geometry": "POINT(112.1166 -79.4666)", "dataset_titles": "Average Annual Layer Thickness of the WAIS Divide Ice Core from Visual Stratigraphy; C-axis Fabric from Physical Properties Samples of the WAIS Divide Ice Core; Updated (2017) bubble number-density, size, shape, and modeled paleoclimate data; WAIS Divide 580m Bubble and Grain Hybrid Data; WAIS Divide Surface and Snow-pit Data, 2009-2013", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601224", "doi": "10.15784/601224", "keywords": "Antarctic; Antarctica; Bubble Number Density; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice; Ice Core Data; Ice Core Records; NSF-ICF Microtome and Photography Stage; Paleoclimate; Physical Properties; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice; WAIS Divide Ice Core; West Antarctic Ice Sheet", "people": "Voigt, Donald E.; Fitzpatrick, Joan; Spencer, Matthew; Alley, Richard; Fegyveresi, John", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "title": "Updated (2017) bubble number-density, size, shape, and modeled paleoclimate data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601224"}, {"dataset_uid": "601079", "doi": "10.15784/601079", "keywords": "Antarctica; Atmosphere; AWS; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; Meteorology; Physical Properties; Snow Pit; Temperature; WAIS Divide; WAIS Divide Ice Core; Weatherstation", "people": "Fegyveresi, John; Alley, Richard", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "title": "WAIS Divide Surface and Snow-pit Data, 2009-2013", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601079"}, {"dataset_uid": "609605", "doi": "10.7265/N5W093VM", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; Physical Properties; WAIS Divide; WAIS Divide Ice Core", "people": "Alley, Richard; Voigt, Donald E.; Fitzpatrick, Joan", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "title": "C-axis Fabric from Physical Properties Samples of the WAIS Divide Ice Core", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609605"}, {"dataset_uid": "601087", "doi": "10.15784/601087", "keywords": "Air Bubbles; Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; Ice Strain; Physical Ice Properties; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice; Strain", "people": "Fegyveresi, John; Alley, Richard", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "title": "WAIS Divide 580m Bubble and Grain Hybrid Data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601087"}, {"dataset_uid": "609603", "doi": "10.7265/N53J39X3", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; WAIS Divide; WAIS Divide Ice Core", "people": "Spencer, Matthew", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "title": "Average Annual Layer Thickness of the WAIS Divide Ice Core from Visual Stratigraphy", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609603"}], "date_created": "Tue, 19 Jun 2012 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "1043528/Alley This award supports a project to complete the physical-properties studies of the WAIS Divide deep ice core, now being collected in West Antarctica. Ongoing work funded by NSF, under a grant that is ending, has produced visible stratigraphy dating, inspection of the core for any melt layers, volcanic horizons, flow disturbances or other features, analysis of bubble number-densities allowing reconstruction of a two-millennial cooling trend in the latter Holocene at the site, characterization of other bubble characteristics (size, etc.), density studies, characterization of snow-surface changes at the site, preliminary c-axis studies, and more. The current proposal seeks to complete this work, once the rest of the core is recovered. The intellectual merit of the proposed activity starts with quality assurance for the core, by visual detection of any evidence of flow disturbances that would disrupt the integrity of the climate record. Inspection will also reveal any melt layers, volcanic horizons, etc. Annual-layer dating will be conducted; thus far, the visible strata have not been as useful as some other indicators, but the possibility (based on experience in Greenland) that visible examination will allow detection of thinner annual layers than other techniques motivates the effort. Bubble number-density will be used to reconstruct temperature changes through the rest of the bubbly part of the core, providing important paleoclimatic data for earlier parts of the Holocene. Coordinated interpretation of c-axis fabrics, grain sizes and shapes, and bubble characteristics will be used to learn about the history of ice flow, the processes of ice flow, and the softness of the ice for additional deformation. Analysis of surface data already collected will improve interpretation of the layering of the core. It is possible that the annual-layer dating will not be sufficiently successful, and that the core will be undisturbed with no melt layers; if so, then these efforts will not yield major publications. However, success of the other efforts should produce improved understanding of the history and stability of the ice sheet, and key processes controlling these, and the quality assurance provided by the visual examination is important for the project as a whole. The broader impacts of the proposed activity include education of a PhD student and multiple undergraduates, and research opportunities for a junior faculty member at an undergraduate institution. The proposed activity will help support an especially vigorous education and outreach effort providing undergraduate instruction for over 1000 students per year, reaching thousands more citizens and many policymakers, and preparing educational materials used at many levels.", "east": 112.1166, "geometry": "POINT(112.1166 -79.4666)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e VISUAL OBSERVATIONS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e MICROSCOPES; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPES; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CHEMICAL METERS/ANALYZERS \u003e ACFA; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e CORING DEVICES; NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE; NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Antarctic; Antarctica; Annual Layer Thickness; Ice Core; Visual Observations; Bubble; LABORATORY; Bubble Density; FIELD INVESTIGATION; Physical Properties; Stratigraphy; Climate Record; Annual Layers; Ice Fabric; C-axis; Model; WAIS Divide; GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS; FIELD SURVEYS; Melt Layers; Wais Divide-project; Not provided", "locations": "WAIS Divide; Antarctica; Antarctic", "north": -79.4666, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences; Antarctic Glaciology; Antarctic Earth Sciences; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Spencer, Matthew; Alley, Richard; Fitzpatrick, Joan; Voigt, Donald E.", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS; Not provided; OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": "WAIS Divide Ice Core", "south": -79.4666, "title": "Collaborative Research: Continued Study of Physical Properties of the WAIS Divide Deep Core", "uid": "p0000027", "west": 112.1166}, {"awards": "0636996 Waddington, Edwin; 0940650 Pettit, Erin", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-165 -75,-159 -75,-153 -75,-147 -75,-141 -75,-135 -75,-129 -75,-123 -75,-117 -75,-111 -75,-105 -75,-105 -76,-105 -77,-105 -78,-105 -79,-105 -80,-105 -81,-105 -82,-105 -83,-105 -84,-105 -85,-111 -85,-117 -85,-123 -85,-129 -85,-135 -85,-141 -85,-147 -85,-153 -85,-159 -85,-165 -85,-165 -84,-165 -83,-165 -82,-165 -81,-165 -80,-165 -79,-165 -78,-165 -77,-165 -76,-165 -75))", "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Fri, 16 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Pettit/0636795\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis award supports a project to constrain the accumulation rate, thickness, and temperature history for Siple Dome using a vertical velocity profile that includes the effects of an evolving fabric on deformation through time, to invert the depth-profile of fabric determined from sonic velocity measurements and grain size observed in thin sections in Siple Dome for the surface temperature and accumulation rate changes in the past, focusing on the apparent abrupt climate change events at 22ka and 15ka. The intellectual merit of the work is that it will extract past climate information from a number of physical properties of the deep ice using a coupled fabric evolution and ice-sheet flow model. The focus will be on the deep ice-age ice at Siple Dome, where the ice-core record shows puzzling signals and where modeling results imply intriguing deformation patterns. The method will also be applied to the records from Byrd Station and Taylor Dome to ultimately form a basis for future analysis of the West Antarctic Divide core. The broader impacts of the project are that it will ultimately contribute to our understanding of the effects of anisotropy on ice flow dynamics in West Antarctica. It will contribute to our understanding of the connection between ice flow and the paleoclimate record in ice cores, particularly with respect to the relationship between the chemical record and ice deformation. And it will contribute a new ice-flow model that includes the effects of anisotropy and fabric evolution. The project will also contribute to advancing the career of a new, young, female investigator and will support a couple of graduate students. Finally, the work will encouraging diversity in the physical sciences by directly helping to support the Girls on Ice a program that encourages young women to explore science and the natural world.", "east": -105.0, "geometry": "POINT(-135 -80)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "LABORATORY; FIELD SURVEYS; FIELD INVESTIGATION; Vertical Velocity; COMPUTERS; Ice Core; Firn; Accumulation Rate; Siple Dome; Ice Thickness; Abrupt Climate Change; Ice Temperature; Metamorphism; Anisotropy; Antarctica", "locations": "Siple Dome; Antarctica", "north": -75.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Pettit, Erin; Waddington, Edwin D.", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS; OTHER \u003e MODELS \u003e COMPUTERS; OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -85.0, "title": "Collaborative Research: Anisotropy, Abrupt Climate Change, and the Deep Ice in West Antarctica", "uid": "p0000741", "west": -165.0}, {"awards": "0842639 Soreghan, Gerilyn", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((162.44835 -77.41693,162.51638 -77.41693,162.58441 -77.41693,162.65244 -77.41693,162.72047 -77.41693,162.7885 -77.41693,162.85653 -77.41693,162.92455999999999 -77.41693,162.99259 -77.41693,163.06062 -77.41693,163.12865 -77.41693,163.12865 -77.445495,163.12865 -77.47406,163.12865 -77.502625,163.12865 -77.53119,163.12865 -77.559755,163.12865 -77.58832,163.12865 -77.616885,163.12865 -77.64545,163.12865 -77.674015,163.12865 -77.70258,163.06062 -77.70258,162.99259 -77.70258,162.92455999999999 -77.70258,162.85653 -77.70258,162.7885 -77.70258,162.72047 -77.70258,162.65244 -77.70258,162.58441 -77.70258,162.51638 -77.70258,162.44835 -77.70258,162.44835 -77.674015,162.44835 -77.64545,162.44835 -77.616885,162.44835 -77.58832,162.44835 -77.559755,162.44835 -77.53119,162.44835 -77.502625,162.44835 -77.47406,162.44835 -77.445495,162.44835 -77.41693))", "dataset_titles": "Development of Quantitative Weathering Indicators in Proximal Alluvial Sediments to Assess Glacial Activity in the Rock Record", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "600110", "doi": "10.15784/600110", "keywords": "Antarctica; Chemistry:fluid; Chemistry:Fluid; Chemistry:rock; Chemistry:Rock; Chemistry:sediment; Chemistry:Sediment; Critical Zone; Geochemistry; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet", "people": "Soreghan, Gerilyn; Elwood Madden, Megan", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Development of Quantitative Weathering Indicators in Proximal Alluvial Sediments to Assess Glacial Activity in the Rock Record", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/600110"}], "date_created": "Fri, 12 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The proposed research seeks to test the hypothesis that chemical and physical weathering in proximal alluvial systems will show systematic and measurable variations between glacial and nonglacial systems. To accomplish this, the investigation will attempt to quantify the natural variation of chemical and physical weathering in granitoid-sourced proximal alluvial sediments in end-member glacial and nonglacial systems, when other, \"non-climatic\" factors (e.g. provenance, drainage basin area and relief, sample grain size, sediment facies) are controlled. If chemical weathering in the proposed hot-humid, hot-arid, hot semi-arid nonglacial systems and the cool-wet, cold semi-arid, and cold-arid glacial systems show systematic variations, then chemical indices may be used to help differentiate paleoclimatic conditions. Continued reliance on students provides a broader impact of this proposed research and firmly grounds this effort in its educational mission.", "east": 163.12865, "geometry": "POINT(162.7885 -77.559755)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": -77.41693, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Soreghan, Gerilyn; Elwood Madden, Megan", "platforms": "Not provided", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -77.70258, "title": "Development of Quantitative Weathering Indicators in Proximal Alluvial Sediments to Assess Glacial Activity in the Rock Record", "uid": "p0000518", "west": 162.44835}, {"awards": "0538494 Meese, Debra", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Microstructural Location and Composition of Impurities in Polar Ice Cores", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "609436", "doi": "10.7265/N5DF6P5P", "keywords": "Antarctica; Arctic; Byrd Glacier; Byrd Ice Core; Chemistry:ice; Chemistry:Ice; Geochemistry; GISP2; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; Lake Vostok; Paleoclimate; Vostok Ice Core", "people": "Obbard, Rachel; Baker, Ian", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Microstructural Location and Composition of Impurities in Polar Ice Cores", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609436"}], "date_created": "Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "0538494\u003cbr/\u003eMeese\u003cbr/\u003eThis award supports a project for physical properties research on snow pits and firn/ice cores with specific objectives that include stratigraphic analysis including determination of accumulation rates, annual layers, depth hoar, ice and wind crusts and rates of grain growth with depth. Studies of firn densification rates and how these parameters relate to the meteorology and climatology over the last 200 years of snow accumulation in Antarctica will also be investigated. The project will also determine the seasonality of accumulation by co-registration of stratigraphy and chemistry and determination of chemical species at the grain boundaries, how these may change with depth/densification (and therefore temperature), precipitation, and may affect grain growth. Fabric analyses will be made, including variation with depth, location on undulations and if any variation exists with climate/chemistry. The large spatial coverage of the US ITASE program offers the opportunity to determine how these parameters are affected by a large range of temperature, precipitation and topographic effects. The intellectual merit of the project includes the fact that ITASE is the terrestrial equivalent of a polar research vessel that provides a unique, logistically efficient, multi-dimensional (x, y, z and time) view of the atmosphere, ice sheet and their histories. Physical properties measurements/ analyses are an integral part of understanding the dynamic processes to which the accumulated snow is subjected. Recent advancements in the field along with multiple core sites provide an excellent opportunity to gain a much broader understanding of the spatial, temporal and physical variables that impact firnification and the possible resultant impact on climatic interpretation. In terms of broader impacts, the data collected by US ITASE and its international ITASE partners is available to a broad scientific community. US ITASE has an extensive program of public outreach and provides significant opportunities for many students to experience multidisciplinary Antarctic research. A graduate student, a post-doctoral fellow and at least one undergraduate would be funded by this work. Dr. Meese is also a member of the New England Science Collaborative, an organization that educates the public on climate change based on recent scientific advancements.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e MICROSCOPES; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPES", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "LABORATORY; Grain Growth; FIELD SURVEYS; Accumulation Rate; Firn Core; FIELD INVESTIGATION; Chemistry; Snow Pit; Depth Hoar; Firn Density; Ice Core; Not provided; Stratigraphic Analysis; Firn; US ITASE; Annual Layers", "locations": null, "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Meese, Deb; MEESE, DEBRA", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS; Not provided; OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "The Physical Properties of the US ITASE Firn and Ice Cores from South Pole to Taylor Dome", "uid": "p0000289", "west": null}, {"awards": "9316767 Jeffries, Martin", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -43.56571,-144 -43.56571,-108 -43.56571,-72 -43.56571,-36 -43.56571,0 -43.56571,36 -43.56571,72 -43.56571,108 -43.56571,144 -43.56571,180 -43.56571,180 -46.304308,180 -49.042906,180 -51.781504,180 -54.520102,180 -57.2587,180 -59.997298,180 -62.735896,180 -65.474494,180 -68.213092,180 -70.95169,144 -70.95169,108 -70.95169,72 -70.95169,36 -70.95169,0 -70.95169,-36 -70.95169,-72 -70.95169,-108 -70.95169,-144 -70.95169,-180 -70.95169,-180 -68.213092,-180 -65.474494,-180 -62.735896,-180 -59.997298,-180 -57.2587,-180 -54.520102,-180 -51.781504,-180 -49.042906,-180 -46.304308,-180 -43.56571))", "dataset_titles": "Expedition Data", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "002231", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP9505"}, {"dataset_uid": "002234", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP9503"}], "date_created": "Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The goal of this investigation is to understand the role of snow in sea ice development processes and air-ice-ocean heat exchange interactions in the seasonal and perennial sea ice zones of the Ross Sea, the Amundsen Sea, and the Bellingshausen Sea. Observations and measurements of the characteristics of sea ice and snow will be combined with numerical models of sea-ice flooding and the entrainment of snow into the ice cover in order to gain an understanding of the sea-ice heat and mass balance, and to quantify the energy exchange within the antarctic sea-ice cover. The snow measurement program, using the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer, will include depth, grain size and morphology, density, temperature, thermal conductivity, water content, and stable isotope ratio. The ice measurement program will include thickness, salinity, temperature, density, brine content, and included gas volume, as well as such structural properties as the fraction of frazil, platelet, and congelation ice in the seasonal antarctic pack ice. Differences in ice types are the result of differences in the environment in which the ice forms: frazil ice is formed in supercooled sea water, normally through wind or wave-induced turbulence, while platelet and congelation ice is formed under quiescent conditions. The fraction of frazil ice is an important variable in the energy budget of the upper ocean, and contributes significantly to the stabilization of the surface layers. The numerical models will involve the thermodynamics of phase changes from liquid water to ice, along with the resulting energy transfer, brine expulsion, and the modulating effect of a snow cover. The results are expected to have broad relevance and application to understanding the effects of sea-ice processes in global change, and atmospheric, oceanographic, and remote sensing investigations of the Southern Ocean.", "east": 180.0, "geometry": "POINT(0 -89.999)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e MAGNETIC/MOTION SENSORS \u003e GRAVIMETERS \u003e GRAVIMETERS", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "R/V NBP", "locations": null, "north": -43.56571, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Jeffries, Martin", "platforms": "WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V NBP", "repo": "R2R", "repositories": "R2R", "science_programs": null, "south": -70.95169, "title": "The Role of Snow in Antarctic Sea Ice Development and Ocean-Atmosphere Energy Exchange", "uid": "p0000642", "west": -180.0}, {"awards": "9614844 Jeffries, Martin", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -43.56557,-144 -43.56557,-108 -43.56557,-72 -43.56557,-36 -43.56557,0 -43.56557,36 -43.56557,72 -43.56557,108 -43.56557,144 -43.56557,180 -43.56557,180 -46.996716,180 -50.427862,180 -53.859008,180 -57.290154,180 -60.7213,180 -64.152446,180 -67.583592,180 -71.014738,180 -74.445884,180 -77.87703,144 -77.87703,108 -77.87703,72 -77.87703,36 -77.87703,0 -77.87703,-36 -77.87703,-72 -77.87703,-108 -77.87703,-144 -77.87703,-180 -77.87703,-180 -74.445884,-180 -71.014738,-180 -67.583592,-180 -64.152446,-180 -60.7213,-180 -57.290154,-180 -53.859008,-180 -50.427862,-180 -46.996716,-180 -43.56557))", "dataset_titles": "Expedition Data", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "002110", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP9803"}, {"dataset_uid": "002003", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "R2R", "science_program": null, "title": "Expedition Data", "url": "https://www.rvdata.us/search/cruise/NBP9901"}], "date_created": "Tue, 04 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This project is a study of the effects of antarctic sea ice in the global climate system, through an examination of how the spatial distribution of ice and snow thickness and of open water is reflected in satellite-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. The field investigations will be carried out from the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer in winter 1998 and summer 1999, and will produce observations of the snow and ice distribution, the crystal structure, stable isotopes, salinity and temperature structure of ice cores, and the stratigraphy, grain size, and water content of the snow cover. The SAR images from ERS-2 and RADARSAT will be acquired at the McMurdo ground station, and processed at the Alaska SAR Facility. These will provide information about the large-scale ice motion field and the small-scale ice deformation field, both of which contribute to the observed ice thickness distribution. In addition, a study of the spatial and temporal variation of the backscattered microwave energy will contribute to the development of numerical models that simulate the dynamic and thermodynamic interactions among the sea ice, ocean, and atmosphere. The surface data is vital for the extraction of environmental information from the radar data, and for the ultimate validation of interactive models.", "east": 180.0, "geometry": "POINT(0 -89.999)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e MAGNETIC/MOTION SENSORS \u003e GRAVIMETERS \u003e GRAVIMETERS", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "R/V NBP", "locations": null, "north": -43.56557, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Jeffries, Martin", "platforms": "WATER-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e VESSELS \u003e SURFACE \u003e R/V NBP", "repo": "R2R", "repositories": "R2R", "science_programs": null, "south": -77.87703, "title": "Dynamic/Thermodynamic Processes and Their Contribution to the Sea Ice Thickness Distribution and Radar Backscatter in the Ross Sea", "uid": "p0000628", "west": -180.0}, {"awards": "0124049 Berger, Glenn", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((161.4 -77.5,161.6 -77.5,161.8 -77.5,162 -77.5,162.20000000000002 -77.5,162.4 -77.5,162.6 -77.5,162.8 -77.5,163 -77.5,163.20000000000002 -77.5,163.4 -77.5,163.4 -77.52,163.4 -77.54,163.4 -77.56,163.4 -77.58,163.4 -77.6,163.4 -77.62,163.4 -77.64,163.4 -77.66,163.4 -77.68,163.4 -77.7,163.20000000000002 -77.7,163 -77.7,162.8 -77.7,162.6 -77.7,162.4 -77.7,162.20000000000002 -77.7,162 -77.7,161.8 -77.7,161.6 -77.7,161.4 -77.7,161.4 -77.68,161.4 -77.66,161.4 -77.64,161.4 -77.62,161.4 -77.6,161.4 -77.58,161.4 -77.56,161.4 -77.54,161.4 -77.52,161.4 -77.5))", "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "0124049\u003cbr/\u003eBerger\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis award supports a project to add to the understanding of what drives glacial cycles. Most researchers agree that Milankovitch seasonal forcing paces the ice ages but how these insolation changes are leveraged into abrupt global climate change remains unknown. A current popular view is that the climate of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean leads that of the rest of the world by a couple thousand years at Termination I and by even greater margins during previous terminations. This project will integrate the geomorphological record of glacial history with a series of cores taken from the lake bottoms in the Dry Valleys of the McMurdo Sound region of Antarctica. Using a modified Livingstone corer, transects of long cores will be obtained from Lakes Fryxell, Bonney, Joyce, and Vanda. A multiparameter approach will be employed which is designed to extract the greatest possible amount of former water-level, glaciological, and paleoenvironmental data from Dry Valleys lakes. Estimates of hydrologic changes will come from different proxies, including grain size, stratigraphy, evaporite mineralogy, stable isotope and trace element chemistry, and diatom assemblage analysis. The chronology, necessary to integrate the cores with the geomorphological record, as well as for comparisons with Antarctic ice-core and glacial records, will come from Uranium-Thorium, Uranium-Helium, and Carbon-14 dating of carbonates, as well as luminescence sediment dating. Evaluation of the link between lake-level and climate will come from hydrological and energy-balance modelling. Combination of the more continuous lake-core sequences with the spatially extensive geomorphological record will result in an integrated Antarctic lake-level and paleoclimate dataset that extends back at least 30,000 years. This record will be compared to Dry Valleys glacier records and to the Antarctic ice cores to address questions of regional climate variability, and then to other Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere records to assess interhemispheric synchrony or asynchrony of climate change.", "east": 163.4, "geometry": "POINT(162.4 -77.6)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e SEDIMENT CORERS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e LIDAR/LASER SOUNDERS \u003e LASERS", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "Stratigraphy; Climate Variability; Shoreline Deposits; Dry Valleys; Antarctic Lake-level; Luminescence Geochronology; Grain Size; Paleoclimate; Antarctica; LABORATORY; Lake Cores", "locations": "Dry Valleys; Antarctica", "north": -77.5, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": "PHANEROZOIC \u003e CENOZOIC \u003e QUATERNARY \u003e HOLOCENE", "persons": "Berger, Glenn; Hall, Brenda; Doran, Peter", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -77.7, "title": "Collaborative Research: Millennial Scale Fluctuations of Dry Valleys Lakes: Implications for Regional Climate Variability and the Interhemispheric (a)Synchrony of Climate Change", "uid": "p0000219", "west": 161.4}, {"awards": "0126270 Doran, Peter", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Polar Programs, provides funds for a study of sediment cores from the McMurdo Dry Valley lakes. The Dry Valley lakes have a long history of fluctuating levels reflecting regional climate change. The history of lake level fluctuations is generally known from the LGM to early Holocene through 14C dates of buried organic matter in paleolake deposits. However, the youngest paleolake deposits available are between 8000 to 9000 14C yr BP, suggesting that lake levels were at or below current levels for much of the Holocene. Thus, any information about the lake history and climate controls for the Holocene is largely contained in bottom sediments. This project will attempt to extract paleoclimatic information from sediment cores for a series of closed-basin dry valley lakes under study by the McMurdo LTER site. This work involves multiple approaches to dating the sediments and use of several climate proxy approaches to extract century to millennial scale chronologies from Antarctic lacustrine deposits. This research uses knowledge on lake processes gained over the past eight years by the LTER to calibrate climate proxies from lake sediments. Proxies for lake depth and ice thickness, which are largely controlled by summer climate, are the focus of this work. This study focuses on four key questions: 1. How sensitively do dry valley lake sediments record Holocene environmental and climate variability? 2. What is the paleoclimatic variability in the dry valleys on a century and millennial scale throughout the Holocene? Especially, is the 1200 yr evaporative event unique, or are there other such events in the record? 3. Does a mid-Holocene (7000 to 5000 yr BP) climate shift occur in the dry valleys as documented elsewhere in the polar regions? 4. Is there evidence, in the dry valley lake record of the 1500 yr Holocene periodicities recently recognized in the Taylor Dome record? Core collection will be performed with LTER support using a state-of-the-art percussion/piston corer system that has been used successfully to retrieve long cores (10 to 20 m) from other remote polar locations. Analyses to be done include algal pigments, biogenic silica, basic geochemistry, organic and inorganic carbon and nitrogen content, stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, carbonate phases, salt content and mineralogy, and grain size. In addition this project will pursue a multi-chronometer approach to assess the age of the core through optically-stimulated luminescence, 226Ra/230Th , 230Th/234U, and 14C techniques. New experimentation with U-series techniques will be performed to allow for greater precision in the dry valley lake sediments. Compound specific isotopes and lipid biomarkers , which are powerful tools for inferring past lake conditions, will also be assessed. Combined, these analyses will provide a new century to millennial scale continuous record of the Holocene climate change in the Ross Sea region.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e SEDIMENT CORERS", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": "PHANEROZOIC \u003e CENOZOIC \u003e QUATERNARY", "persons": "Doran, Peter", "platforms": "Not provided", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Paleoclimate Inferred from Lake Sediment Cores in Taylor Valley, Antarctica", "uid": "p0000092", "west": null}, {"awards": "0230190 Goldsby, David", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Mon, 14 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award supports a project to conduct laboratory experiments to investigate textures formed in ice during superplastic flow. Superplastic flow has recently been discovered in the laboratory and can be considered a new flow mechanism for ice. A simple extrapolation of these new data for superplastic flow from laboratory to natural conditions suggests that glaciers and ice sheets flow via this mechanism. Furthermore, several grain-scale features in ice (e.g., crystal shape) produced during superplastic flow in the laboratory are remarkably similar to those observed in glaciers and ice sheets. Despite this exciting discovery, however, important questions remain before we can apply with full confidence these new flow data in mathematical models of glacier and ice sheet flow. The textures seen in laboratory studies will be compared with those observed in field studies of glaciers and ice sheets. These comparisons, coupled with comparisons of the new superplastic flow data from the laboratory with flow measurements from field studies, will provide a powerful method for further assessing the importance of superplastic flow in nature and thereby improve our understanding of glacier and ice sheet dynamics and global climate change. Experiments will be conducted by the PI and an undergraduate research assistant. Experimental results will be published in relevant refereed journals, presented at glaciology meetings and incorporated into coursework.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e CORING DEVICES", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "LABORATORY", "locations": null, "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Goldsby, David", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "A Laboratory Study of Texture Development During Grain Size Sensitive Creep of Ice, with Applications to the Flow of Glaciers and Ice Sheets", "uid": "p0000288", "west": null}, {"awards": "0125570 Scambos, Ted; 0125276 Albert, Mary", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Access AGDC data online by navigating to Data Sets. Data sets are arranged by Principal Investigators. Access data that are combined into multiple data sets, or compiled products.; AWS Data: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and Their Potential Effect on Ice Core Interpretation; GPR and GPS Data: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and their Potential Effects on Ice Core Interpretation; Snow and Firn Permeability: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and their Potential Effects on Ice Core Interpretation; The Antarctic Glaciological Data Center (AGDC) at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) archives and distributes Antarctic glaciological and cryospheric system data collected by the U.S. Antarctic Program.", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "609283", "doi": "10.7265/N5K935F3", "keywords": "Antarctica; Atmosphere; East Antarctic Plateau; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Meteorology; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice", "people": "Fahnestock, Mark; Haran, Terry; Bauer, Rob; Scambos, Ted", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "AWS Data: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and Their Potential Effect on Ice Core Interpretation", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609283"}, {"dataset_uid": "001669", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "NSIDC", "science_program": null, "title": "Access AGDC data online by navigating to Data Sets. Data sets are arranged by Principal Investigators. Access data that are combined into multiple data sets, or compiled products.", "url": "http://nsidc.org/data/agdc_investigators.html"}, {"dataset_uid": "001343", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "NSIDC", "science_program": null, "title": "The Antarctic Glaciological Data Center (AGDC) at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) archives and distributes Antarctic glaciological and cryospheric system data collected by the U.S. Antarctic Program.", "url": "https://nsidc.org/data/agdc/"}, {"dataset_uid": "609282", "doi": "10.7265/N5Q23X5F", "keywords": "Antarctica; East Antarctic Plateau; Glaciology; GPR; GPS; Navigation; Paleoclimate; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice", "people": "Scambos, Ted; Bauer, Rob", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "GPR and GPS Data: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and their Potential Effects on Ice Core Interpretation", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609282"}, {"dataset_uid": "609299", "doi": "10.7265/N5639MPD", "keywords": "Antarctica; East Antarctic Plateau; Glaciology; Physical Properties; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice", "people": "Cathles, Mac; Albert, Mary R.; Courville, Zoe", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Snow and Firn Permeability: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and their Potential Effects on Ice Core Interpretation", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609299"}], "date_created": "Wed, 04 Jan 2006 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award supports a program of field surveys of an area within the large, well-developed megadune field southeast of Vostok station. The objectives are to determine the physical characteristics of the firn across the dunes, including typical climate indicators such as stable isotopes and major chemical species, and to install instruments to measure the time variation of near-surface wind and temperature with depth, to test and refine hypotheses for megadune formation. Field study will consist of surface snowpit and shallow core sampling, ground penetrating radar (GPR) profiling, GPS topographic and ice motion surveys, AWS installation, accumulation/ ablation measurements, subsurface temperature, and firn permeability studies. Field work in two successive seasons is proposed. Continent-wide remote sensing studies of the dunes will be continued, using the new group of instruments that are now, or will shortly be available (e.g., MODIS, MISR, GLAS, AMSR). The earlier study of topographic, passive microwave, and SAR characteristics will be extended, with the intent of determining the relationships of dune amplitude and wavelength to climate parameters, and further development of models of dune formation. Diffusion, ventilation, and vapor transport processes within the dune firn will be modeled as well. A robust program of outreach is planned and reporting to inform both the public and scientists of the fundamental in-situ and remote sensing characteristics of these uniquely Antarctic features will be an important part of the work. Because of their extreme nature, their broad extent, and their potential impact on the climate record, it is important to improve our current understanding of these. Megadunes are a manifestation of an extreme terrestrial climate and may provide insight on past terrestrial climate, or to processes active on other planets. Megadunes are likely to represent an end-member in firn diagenesis, and as such, may have much to teach us about the processes involved.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e RECORDERS/LOGGERS \u003e AWS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e ICE AUGERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROBES \u003e SNOWPACK TEMPERATURE PROBE; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PROBES \u003e PERMEAMETERS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e CAMERAS \u003e CAMERAS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CURRENT/WIND METERS \u003e ANEMOMETERS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS RECEIVERS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e IMAGING RADARS \u003e SAR; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR SOUNDERS \u003e GPR; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CHEMICAL METERS/ANALYZERS \u003e AIR PERMEAMETERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CURRENT/WIND METERS \u003e ANEMOMETERS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e RADIO \u003e ARGOS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PRESSURE/HEIGHT METERS \u003e PRESSURE SENSORS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e TEMPERATURE/HUMIDITY SENSORS \u003e THERMOMETERS \u003e THERMOMETERS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e WIND PROFILERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e CORING DEVICES; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e DENSIOMETERS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e GAUGES \u003e BALANCE", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Internal Layering; ICESAT; Vapor-Redeposition; Antarctic; Wind Speed; FIELD INVESTIGATION; Surface Morphology; Antarctica; GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS; ARWS; Polar Firn Air; Microstructure; Gas Diffusivity; WEATHER STATIONS; Surface Temperatures; RADARSAT-2; Ice Core; Wind Direction; AWS; Ice Sheet; Snow Pit; Dunefields; Climate Record; Megadunes; GROUND STATIONS; METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS; Antarctic Ice Sheet; Density; Atmospheric Pressure; Firn Permeability; FIELD SURVEYS; Radar; Permeability; Field Survey; Firn Temperature Measurements; Snow Megadunes; Thermal Conductivity; LANDSAT; Firn; Ice Core Interpretation; East Antarctic Plateau; Not provided; Surface Winds; Sublimation; Snow Density; Ice Climate Record; Glaciology; Snow Permeability; Air Temperature; Paleoenvironment; Automated Weather Station", "locations": "Antarctica; Antarctic Ice Sheet; Antarctic; East Antarctic Plateau", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": "PHANEROZOIC \u003e CENOZOIC \u003e QUATERNARY \u003e HOLOCENE", "persons": "Courville, Zoe; Cathles, Mac; Scambos, Ted; Bauer, Rob; Fahnestock, Mark; Haran, Terry; Shuman, Christopher A.; Albert, Mary R.", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e ARWS; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e GROUND STATIONS; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e WEATHER STATIONS; Not provided; SPACE-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e EARTH OBSERVATION SATELLITES \u003e ICE, CLOUD AND LAND ELEVATION SATELLITE (ICESAT) \u003e ICESAT; SPACE-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e EARTH OBSERVATION SATELLITES \u003e LANDSAT \u003e LANDSAT; SPACE-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e EARTH OBSERVATION SATELLITES \u003e RADARSAT \u003e RADARSAT-2", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "NSIDC; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Collaborative Research: Characteristics of Snow Megadunes and Their Potential Effect on Ice Core Interpretation", "uid": "p0000587", "west": null}, {"awards": "0135989 Wilen, Larry", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Ice Fabric Characteristics: Siple Dome, A Core", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "609255", "doi": "10.7265/N54B2Z7V", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Core Records; Siple Dome; Siple Dome Ice Core", "people": "Wilen, Larry", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "Siple Dome Ice Core", "title": "Ice Fabric Characteristics: Siple Dome, A Core", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/609255"}], "date_created": "Wed, 02 Mar 2005 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "0135989\u003cbr/\u003eWilen\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis is a collaborative proposal by Principal Investigators at the University of Washington and Ohio University. Detailed knowledge about the interactions between micro-structure of ice and its deformation is needed to assess the integrity of stratigraphic layering and the depth-age relationship in ice cores, which is essential for interpreting the paleoclimate record. The Principal Investigators will use micro-structure to study fabric, the orientation distribution of crystal c-axes, and texture, the size and shape of crystals. Numerical modeling of ice deformation is a useful tool in understanding these interactions. Accurate modeling of ice deformation is complicated by factors, such as the fabric, grain size, dynamic recrystallization, stress level, and precise knowledge of initial conditions. For example, ice fabric evolves as the ice is strained and the deformation depends on the fabric. This complicated feedback mechanism must be understood to correctly model ice deformation. In another example, the usual assumption is that the initial fabric is isotropic or random, but there are excellent examples of near-surface ice in the ice cores that are apparently not isotropic. One must know the initial fabric to calculate the deformation rate in ice sheets. Dr. Wilen will combine results of his new automatic fabric analyzer (AFA) with predictions of detailed ice deformation models (Dr. Thorsteinsson) to refine and better constrain such models. The AFA gives new information in thin sections because the precision and number of measured c-axis orientations are greatly improved. The Principal Investigators will analyze existing data and collect new data on fabric and texture from ice cores to address questions regarding near-surface fabric, deformation mechanisms, dynamic recrystallization, and potential sources of layer disturbances. The data will be used to constrain models of fabric evolution and recrystallization processes. With the more refined models, scientists can address different questions and important problems related to ice deformation and ice cores. For example, the recent agreement between the climate records from the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) and Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) ice cores of the upper-90%, and the disagreement in the lower-10% emphasizes the need to understand and predict the mechanisms and probable depths of disruption in these and future deep ice cores. Evidence suggests that the stratigraphic disturbances arise from the anisotropic nature of ice crystals at a variety of scales. To properly model the deformation of anisotropic ice, the influence of fabric on deformation must be well known.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS; Ice Core Data; Siple Dome; Ice Fabric; Ice Core; USAP-DC", "locations": "Siple Dome", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology; Arctic Natural Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Wilen, Larry", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": "Siple Dome Ice Core", "south": null, "title": "Collaborative Research: Fabric and Texture Characteristics of Micro-Physical Processes in Ice", "uid": "p0000134", "west": null}]
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Climate change is disproportionately affecting polar regions, with the Arctic now warming nearly four times faster than the global average. Polar warming drives coastal erosion and increases sediment delivery to the coastal ocean, affecting ecosystem processes ranging from primary productivity to carbon sequestration. Tracking changes in sedimentation rate is urgently needed to determine current conditions and measure further change. In polar regions, however, two of the most globally reliable sediment tracers, the radioisotopes lead-210 (210Pb) and cesium-137 (137Cs), have yielded mixed results. To understand the distribution and usefulness of these radioisotopes at high latitudes, this research makes use of a wealth of polar sediment cores archived at the Oregon State University Marine and Geology Repository combined with data synthesized from the literature. Results provide the first systematic study of Arctic and Antarctic sediment accretion. Improving the tools we use to track changes in sedimentation will help coastal managers and decisionmakers understand how climate change is impacting polar coastlines and marine environments, and what local communities should expect in the future. Sediment cores will be subsampled and analyzed for the activities of 210Pb (half-life = 22.3 years) and 137Cs (half-life = 30.1 years) using alpha and gamma spectroscopy, respectively. To provide context related to depositional environment, select subsamples will also be analyzed for sediment bulk density, grain size distribution, and organic content. A subset of samples with no measurable 210Pb or 137Cs activity will be analyzed for 14C to determine whether the lack of radioisotopes in a sample is because the core is simply too old, the true surface layer is missing, or because the shorter-lived radioisotopes did not accumulate. By undertaking comprehensive spatial analysis of the distribution of 210Pb and 137Cs in Arctic and Antarctic sediments, this research will achieve three goals: first, measure the activity of short-lived radioisotopes in archived sediment cores, a service to the science community that is urgently needed before the isotopes decay beyond detection; second, produce a comprehensive pole-wide atlas of sediment accretion rates; and finally, conduct a temporal analysis of sedimentation rate changes over the last ~60 to 125 years along the Beaufort Sea coast of northern Alaska, an ecologically and economically important region experiencing environmental transformation due to climate warming. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
The seaward motion of ice sheets and glaciers is primarily controlled by basal sliding at the base of the ice sheet and internal viscous flow within the ice mass. The latter of these — viscous flow — is dependent on various factors, including temperature, stress, grain size, and the alignment of ice crystals during flow to produce a "crystal orientation fabric" (COF). Historically, ice flow has been modeled using an equation, termed “Glen’s law”, that describes ice-flow rate as a function of temperature and stress. Glen’s law was constrained under relatively high-stress conditions and is often attributed to the motion of crystal defects within ice grains. More recently, however, grain boundary sliding (GBS) has been invoked as the rate-controlling process under low-stress, “superplastic” conditions. The grain boundary sliding hypothesis is contentious because GBS is not thought to produce a COF, whereas geophysical measurements and polar ice cores demonstrate strong COFs in polar ice masses. However, very few COF measurements have been conducted on ice samples subjected to superplastic flow conditions in the laboratory. This project would measure the evolution of ice COF across the transition from superplastic to Glen-type creep. Results will be used to interrogate the role of superplastic GBS creep within polar ice masses, and thereby provide constraints on polar ice discharge models. Polycrystalline ice samples with grain sizes ranging from 5 µm to 1000 µm will be fabricated and deformed in a laboratory, using a 1-atm cryogenic axial-torsion apparatus. Experiments will be conducted at temperatures of -30°C to -10°C, and at a constant uniaxial strain rate. Under these conditions, 5% to 99.99% of strain should be accommodated by superplastic, GBS-limited creep, depending on the sample grain size. The deformed samples will then be imaged using cryogenic electron backscatter diffraction (cryo-EBSD) and high-angular-resolution electron backscatter diffraction (HR-EBSD) to quantify COF, grain size, grain shape, and crystal defect (dislocation) densities, among other microstructural properties. These measurements will be used to decipher the rate-controlling mechanisms operating within different thermomechanical regimes, and resolve a long-standing debate over whether superplastic creep can produce a COF in ice. In addition to the polycrystal experiments, ice bicrystals will be fabricated and deformed to investigate the micromechanical behavior of individual grain boundaries under superplastic conditions. Ultimately, these results will be used to provide a microstructural toolbox for identifying superplastic creep using geophysical (e.g., seismic, radar) and glaciological (e.g., ice core) observations. This project will support one graduate student, one or more undergraduate summer students, and an early-career researcher. In addition, this project will support a workshop aimed at bringing together experimentalists, glaciologists, and ice modelers to facilitate cross-disciplinary knowledge sharing and collaborative problem solving. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Microbes in Antarctic surface marine sediments have an important role in degrading organic matter and releasing nutrients to the ocean. Organic matter degradation is at the center of the carbon cycle in the ocean, providing valuable information on nutrient recycling, food availability to animals and carbon dioxide release to the atmosphere. The functionality of these microbes has been inferred by their genomics, however these methods only address the possible function, not their actual rates. In this project the PIs plan to combine genomics methods with cellular estimates of enzyme abundance and activity as a way to determine the rates of carbon degradation. This project aims to sample in several regions of Antarctica to provide a large-scale picture of the processes under study and understand the importance of microbial community composition and environmental factors, such as primary productivity, have on microbial activity. The proposed work will combine research tools such as metagenomics, meta-transcriptomics, and metabolomics coupled with chemical data and enzyme assays to establish degradation of organic matter in Antarctic sediments. This project benefits NSFs goals of understanding the adaptation of Antarctic organisms to the cold and isolated environment, critical to predict effects of climate change to polar organisms, as well as contribute to our knowledge of how Antarctic organisms have adapted to this environment. Society will benefit from this project by education of 2 graduate students, undergraduates and K-12 students as well as increase public literacy through short videos production shared in YouTube. The PIs propose to advance understanding of polar microbial community function, by measuring enzyme and gene function of complex organic matter degradation in several ocean regions, providing a circum-Antarctic description of sediment processes. Two hypotheses are proposed. The first hypothesis states that many genes for the degradation of complex organic matter will be shared in sediments throughout a sampling transect and that where variations in gene content occur, it will reflect differences in the quantity and quality of organic matter, not regional variability. The second hypothesis states that a fraction of gene transcripts for organic matter degradation will not result in measurable enzyme activity due to post-translational modification or rapid degradation of the enzymes. The PIs will analyze sediment cores already collected in a 2020 cruise to the western Antarctic Peninsula with the additional request of participating in a cruise in 2023 to East Antarctica. The PIs will analyze sediments for metagenomics, meta-transcriptomics, and metabolomics coupled with geochemical data and enzyme assays to establish microbial degradation of complex organic matter in Antarctic sediments. Organic carbon concentrations and content in sediments will be measured with δ13C, δ15N, TOC porewater fluorescence in bulk organic carbon. Combined with determination of geographical variability as well as dependence on carbon sources, results from this study could provide the basis for new hypotheses on how climate variability, with increased water temperature, affects geochemistry in the Southern Ocean. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is the most vulnerable polar ice mass to warming and already a major contributor to global mean sea level rise. Its fate in the light of prolonged warming is a topic of major uncertainty. Accelerated sea level rise from ice mass loss in the polar regions is a major concern as a cause of increased coastal flooding affecting millions of people. This project will disclose a unique geological archive buried beneath the seafloor off the Amundsen Sea, Antarctica, which will reveal how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet behaved in a warmer climate in the past. The data and insights can be used to inform ice-sheet and ocean modeling used in coastal policy development. The project will also support the development of a competitive U.S. STEM workforce. Online class exercises for introductory geology classes will provide a gateway for qualified students into undergraduate research programs and this project will enhance the participation of women in science by funding the education of current female Ph.D. students. The project targets the long-term variability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet over several glacial-interglacial cycles in the early Pliocene sedimentary record drilled by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 379 in the Amundsen Sea. Data collection includes 1) the sand provenance of ice-rafted debris and shelf diamictites and its sources within the Amundsen Sea and Antarctic Peninsula region; 2) sedimentary structures and sortable silt calculations from particle size records and reconstructions of current intensities and interactions; and 3) the bulk provenance of continental rise sediments compared to existing data from the Amundsen Sea shelf with investigations into downslope currents as pathways for Antarctic Bottom Water formation. The results are analyzed within a cyclostratigraphic framework of reflectance spectroscopy and colorimetry (RSC) and X-ray fluorescence scanner (XRF) data to gain insight into orbital forcing of the high-latitude processes. The early Pliocene Climatic Optimum (PCO) ~4.5-4.1 Ma spans a major warm period recognized in deep-sea stable isotope and sea-surface temperature records. This period also coincides with a global mean sea level highstand of > 20 m requiring contributions in ice mass loss from Antarctica. The following hypotheses will be tested: 1) that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreated from the continental shelf break through an increase in sub iceshelf melt and iceberg calving at the onset of the PCO ~4.5 Ma, and 2) that dense shelf water cascaded down through slope channels after ~4.5 Ma as the continental shelf became exposed during glacial terminations. The project will reveal for the first time how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet operated in a warmer climate state prior to the onset of the current “icehouse” period ~3.3 Ma. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
A nontechnical description of the project The primary scientific goal of the project is to test whether Taylor Valley, Antarctica has been eroded significantly by glaciers in the last ~2 million years (Ma). Taylor Valley is one of the Dry Valleys of the Transantarctic Mountains, which are characterized by low mean annual temperatures, low precipitation, and limited erosion. These conditions have allowed fragile glacial landforms to be preserved for up to 15 Ma. Sediment eroded and deposited by glaciers is found on the valley walls and floors, with progressively younger deposits preserved at lower elevations. Scientists can date glacial deposits to understand the process and timing of past glacial erosion. Previous work in the Dry Valleys region suggested that extremely cold glaciers like Taylor Glacier, a major outlet glacier entering the valleys, were not erosive during the last several million years. This research will test a new hypothesis that glacial erosion and sediment production beneath Taylor Glacier have been active in the last few million years. This hypothesis will be tested using a new isotopic dating method called "comminution dating' which determines when fine-grained sediment particles called silt were formed. If the sediment age is young, then the results will suggest that glacial processes have been more dynamic than previously thought. Overall, this study will increase our understanding of the nature and extent of past glaciations in Antarctica. Because the silt produced by erosion sediment is a nutrient for local ecosystems, the results will also shed light on delivery of nutrients to soils, streams, and coastal zones in high polar regions. This project will be led by an early career scientist and includes training of a Ph.D. student. A technical description of the project There is a long-standing scientific controversy about the stability of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet with much evidence centered in the Dry Valleys region of South Victoria Land. A prevailing view of geomorphologists is that the landscape has been very stable and that the effects of glaciation have been minimal for the past ~15 Ma. This project will distinguish between two end-member scenarios of glacial erosion and deposition by Taylor Glacier, an outlet glacier of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet that terminates in Taylor Valley in the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica. In the first scenario, all valley relief is generated prior to 15 Ma when non-polar climates enabled warm-based glaciers to incise and widen ancient river channels. In this case, younger glacial deposits record advances of cold-based glaciers of decreasing ice volume and limited glacial erosion, and sediment generation resulted in glacial deposits composed primarily of older recycled sediments. In the second scenario, selective erosion of the valley floor has continued to deepen Taylor Valley but has not affected the adjacent peaks over the last 2 Ma. In this scenario, the "bathtub rings" of Quaternary glacial deposits situated at progressively lower elevations through time could be due to the lowering of the valley floor by subglacial erosion and with it, production of new sediment which is now incorporated into these deposits. While either scenario would result in the present-day topography, they differ in the implied evolution of regional glacial ice volume over time and the timing of both valley relief production and generation of fine-grained particles. The two scenarios will be tested by placing time constraints on fine particle production using U-series comminution dating. This new geochronologic tool exploits the loss of 234U due to alpha-recoil. The deficiency in 234U only becomes detectable in fine-grained particles with a sufficiently high surface-area-to-volume ratio which can incur appreciable 234U loss. The timing of comminution and particle size controls the magnitude of 234U loss. While this geochronologic tool is in its infancy, the scientific goal of this proposal can be achieved by resolving between ancient and recently comminuted fine particles, a binary question that the preliminary modeling and measured data show is readily resolved.
Western Antarctica is one of the fastest warming locations on Earth. Its changing climate will lead to an increase in sea-level and will also alter regional water temperature and chemistry. These changes will directly alter the microbes that inhabit the ecosystem. Microbes are the smallest forms of life on Earth, but they are also the most abundant. They drive cycling of essential nutrients, such as carbon and nitrogen that are found in ocean sediments. In this way they form the foundation of the food chain that supports larger and more complex life. However, we do not know much about how different communities of microbes break down sediments in Antarctica and this will influence the chemistry of those waters. This research will determine how communities of microbes on the coastal shelf of Antarctica degrade complex organic sediments using genetic and chemical data. This data will identify the species in the community, what enzymes they are producing and what chemical reactions they are driving. This research will create broader impacts as the data will be used to create in-class activities that improve a student’s data analysis and critical thinking skills. The data will be used in graduate, undergraduate and K-12 classrooms. This research will provide genetic and enzymatic insight into how microbial communities in benthic sediments on the coastal shelf of Antarctica degrade complex organic matter. The current understanding of how benthic microbial communities respond to and then degrade complex organic matter in Antarctica is fragmented. Recent work suggests benthic microbial communities are shaped by organic matter availability. However, those studies were observational and did not directly examine community function. A preliminary study of metagenomic data from western Antarctic marine sediments, indicates a genetic potential for organic matter degradation but functional data was not been collected. Other studies have examined either enzyme activity or metagenomic potential, but few have been able to directly connect the two. To address this gap in knowledge, this study will utilize metagenomics and metatranscriptomics, coupled with microcosm experiments, enzyme assays, and geochemical data. It will examine Antarctic microbial communities from the Ross Sea, the Bransfield Strait and Weddell Sea to document how the relationship between a communities’ enzymatic activity and the genes used to degrade complex organic matter is related to sediment breakdown. The data will expand our current knowledge of microbial genetic potential and provide a solid understanding of enzyme function as it relates to degradation of complex organic matter in those marine sediments. It will thereby improve our understanding of temperature change on the chemistry of Antarctic seawater. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Part I: Non-technical description: Predicting how polar ice sheets will respond to future global warming is difficult because all the processes that contribute to their melting are not well understood. This is important because the more ice on land that melts, the higher sea levels will rise. The most significant uncertainty in current estimates of sea-level rise in the coming decades is the potential contribution from the Antarctic Ice Sheet. One way to increase our knowledge about how large ice sheets respond to climate change in response to natural factors is to examine the geologic past. Natural global warming (and cooling) events in Earth’s history provide examples that we can use to better understand processes, interactions, and responses we can’t directly observe today. One such time period, approximately three million years ago (known as the Pliocene), was the last time atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were as high as they are today and, therefore, represents a time period to study to better understand the ice sheet response to a warming climate. Specifically, this project is interested in understanding how ocean currents near Antarctica, which transport heat and store carbon, behaved during these past climate events. The history of past ice sheet-ocean interactions are recorded in sediments that were deposited, layer upon layer, in the deep sea offshore Antarctica. In January-February 2018, a team of scientists and crew set sail to the Ross Sea, offshore west Antarctica, on the scientific ocean drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution to recover such sediment archives. This project focuses on a sediment core from that expedition, which captures the relatively warm Pliocene time interval, as well as the subsequent transition into cooler climates typical of the past two million years. The researchers will analyze the sediment with multiple complementary measurements, including: grain size, composition, chemistry of organic matter, physical structures, microfossil type and abundance, and more. These analyses will be done by the research team, including several students, at their respective laboratories and will then integrated into a unified record of ice sheet-ocean interactions. Ultimately, the results will be used to improve modeled projections of how the Antarctic Ice Sheet could respond to future climate change. Part II: Technical description: Geological records from the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) margin demonstrate that the ice sheet oscillated in response to orbital variations in insolation (i.e., ~400, 100, 41, and 20 kyr), and it appears to be more sensitive to specific frequencies that regulate mean annual insolation (i.e., 41-kyr obliquity), particularly when the ice sheet extends into marine environments and is impacted by ocean circulation. However, the relationship between orbital forcing and the production of Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) is unconstrained. Thus, a knowledge gap exists in understanding how changing insolation impacts ice marginal and Southern Ocean conditions that directly influence ventilation of the global ocean. The researchers hypothesize that insolation-driven changes directly affected the production and export of AABW to the Southern Ocean from the Pliocene through the Pleistocene. For example, obliquity amplification during the warmer Pliocene may have led to enhanced production and export of dense waters from the shelf due to reduced AIS extent, which, in turn, led to greater AABW outflow. To determine the relationship of AABW production to orbital regime, they plan to reconstruct both from a single, continuous record from the levee of Hillary Canyon, a major conduit of AABW outflow, on the Ross Sea continental rise. To test their hypothesis, they will analyze sediment from IODP Site U1524 (recovered in 2018 during International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 374) and focus on three data sets. (1) They will use the occurrence, frequency, and character of mm-scale turbidite beds as a proxy of dense-shelf-water cascading outflow and AABW production. They will estimate the down-slope flux via numerical modeling of turbidity current properties using morphology, grain size, and bed thickness as input parameters. (2) They will use grain-size data, physical properties, XRF core scanning, CT imaging, and hyperspectral imaging to guide lithofacies analysis to infer processes occurring during glacial, deglacial, and interglacial periods. Statistical techniques and optimization methods will be applied to test for astronomical forcing of sedimentary packages in order to provide a cyclostratigraphic framework and interpret the orbital-forcing regime. (3) They will use bulk sedimentary carbon and nitrogen abundance and isotope data to determine how relative contributions of terrigenous and marine organic matter change in response to orbital forcing. All of these data will be integrated with sedimentological records to deconvolve organic matter production from its deposition or remobilization due to AABW outflow as a function of the oscillating extent of the AIS. These data sets will be integrated into a unified chronostratigraphy to determine the relationship between AABW outflow and orbital-forcing scenarios under the varying climate regimes of the Plio-Pleistocene. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
The ice of the polar ice sheets is among the purest substances on Earth, yet the small amount of impurities --such as acids-- are important to how the ice flows and what can be learned from ice cores about past climate. The goal of this project is to understand the role of such acids on the deformation of polycrystalline ice by comparing the deformation behavior of pure and sulfuric acid-doped samples. Sulfuric acid was chosen both because of its importance for interpreting past climate and because it can lead to water veins in ice at low temperatures. This work will focus on the location, movement, and impact of acids in polycrystalline ice that are more complex than in single crystals of ice. By deforming samples and performing microstructural characterization, the role of acids on deformation rate, grain evolution, and the movement of the acids themselves, will be assessed. The work will lead to the education of a Ph.D. student at Dartmouth College, introduce undergraduate students to research at both the University of Washington and Dartmouth College. Despite the ubiquitous use of the constitutive relation for ice commonly referred to as "Glen's Flow Law", significant uncertainty exists particularly with regard to the role of impurities and the development of oriented fabrics. The aim of this project is to improve the constitutive relationship for ice by performing deformation tests and microstructural characterization of pure and sulfuric acid-doped ice. The project will focus on sulfuric acid's impact on ice viscosity, fabric evolution, and diffusivity. Sulfuric acid can have both direct and indirect effects on the mechanical properties of polycrystalline ice. The direct effects change the dislocation velocity and/or density, and the indirect effects change the grain size and fabric. The complexity and interaction of these effects means that it is not possible to understand the effects of sulfuric acid by simply examining ice core specimens. In this project, the team will deform four types of ice: lab-grown ice samples doped with similar-to-natural concentrations of sulfuric acid, lab-grown high-purity ice, layered doped and pure ice, and natural ice from Antarctic ice cores. Deformation will be performed in both uniaxial compression and simple shear. The addition of simple shear tests is critical for relating the laboratory-observed deformation behavior to the behavior of polar ice sheets where the shear strain dominates ice motion in basal ice. After deformation to strains from 5 percent up to 25 percent, the microstructural development will be assessed with methods including a variety of scanning electron microscope techniques, Raman microscopy, synchrotron-based Nano-X-ray fluorescence, and ion chromatography. These analysis techniques will allow the determination of 1) the segregation and movement of impurities, 2) the rate of grain-boundary migration, 3) the number of recrystallized grains; and 4) the full orientation of the ice crystals. The results will enable both microstructural modeling of the effects of sulfuric acid and numerical modeling of diffusion in ice cores. The net result will be a better understanding of ice deformation that improves ice-core interpretation and ice-sheet modeling. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
This project will test the hypothesis that physical and thermal properties of Antarctic firn--partially compacted granular snow in an intermediate stage between snow and glacier ice--can be remotely measured from space. Although these properties, such as internal temperature, density, grain size, and layer thickness, are highly relevant to studies of Antarctic climate, ice-sheet dynamics, and mass balance, their measurement currently relies on sparse in-situ surveys under challenging weather conditions. Sensors on polar-orbiting satellites can observe the entire Antarctic every few days during their years-long lifetime. Consequently, the approaches developed in this study, when coupled with the advancing technologies of small and low-cost CubeSats, aim to contribute to Antarctic science and lead to cost-effective, convenient, and accurate long-term analyses of the Antarctic system while reducing the human footprint on the continent. Moreover, the project will be solely based on publicly-available datasets; thus, while contributing to interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate research and education at the grantee's institution, the project will also encourage engagement of citizen scientists through its website. The overarching goal of this project is to characterize Antarctic firn layers in terms of their thickness, physical temperature, density, and grain size through multi-frequency microwave radiometer measurements from space. Electromagnetic penetration depth changes with frequency in ice; thus, multi-frequency radiometers are able to profile firn layer properties versus depth. To achieve its objective, the project will utilize the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite constellation as a single multi-frequency microwave radiometer system with 11 frequency channels observing the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Archived in-situ measurements of Antarctic firn density, grain size, temperature, and layer thickness will be collected and separated into training and test datasets. Microwave emissions simulated using the training data will be compared to GPM constellation measurements to evaluate and improve state-of-the-art forward microwave emission models. Based on these models, the project will develop numerical retrieval algorithms for the thermal and physical properties of Antarctic firn. Results of retrievals will be validated using the test dataset, and uncertainty and error analyses will be conducted. Lastly, changes in the thermal and physical characteristics of Antarctic firn will be examined through long-term retrieval studies exploiting GPM constellation measurements. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Iverson/1643120 This award supports a project to study temperate ice, using both experimental methods and modeling, in order to determine the effect of water on its flow resistance and structure and to study the mobility of water within the ice. A new mathematical model of ice stream flow and temperature is developed in conjunction with these experiments. The model includes water production, storage, and movement in deforming ice and their effects on flow resistance at ice stream margins and on water availability for lubrication of ice stream beds. Results will improve estimates of the evolution of ice stream speed and geometry in a warming climate, and so improve the accuracy of assessments of the contribution of the Antarctic ice sheet to sea level rise over the next century. Ice streams are zones of rapid flow within the Antarctic ice sheet and are primarily responsible for its discharge of ice to the ocean and major effect on sea-level rise. Water plays a central role in the flow of ice streams. It lubricates their bases and softens their margins, where flow speeds abruptly transition from rapid to slow. Within ice stream margins some ice is "temperate", meaning that it is at its melting temperature and thus contains intercrystalline water that significantly softens the ice. Two postdoctoral researchers will be supported, trained, and mentored for academic careers, and three undergraduates will be introduced to research in the geosciences. This award is part the NSF/GEO-UK NERC lead agency opportunity (NSF 14-118) and is a collaboration between Iowa State University in the United States and Oxford University in the United Kingdom. The two-phase deformation of temperate ice will be studied, with the objective of determining its effect on the flow of Antarctic ice streams. The project has two components that reinforce each other. First there will be laboratory experiments in which a rotary device at Iowa State University will be used to determine relationships between the water content of temperate ice and its rheology and permeability. The second component will involve the development at Oxford University of a two-phase, fluid-dynamical theory of temperate ice and application of this theory in models of ice-stream dynamics. Results of the experiments will guide the constitutive rules and parameter ranges considered in the theory, and application of elements of the theory will improve interpretations of the experimental results. The theory and resultant models will predict the coupled distributions of temperate ice, water, stress, deformation, and basal slip that control the evolution of ice-stream speed and geometry. The modeling will result in parameterizations that allow ice streaming to be included in continental-scale models of ice sheets in a simplified but physically defensible way.
Over the past century, climate science has constructed an extensive record of Earth’s ice age cycles through the chemical and isotopic characterization of various geologic archives such as polar ice cores, deep-ocean sediments, and cave speleothems. These climatic archives provide an insightful picture of ice age cycles and of the related large global sea level fluctuations triggered by these significant climate rhythms. However, such records still provide limited insight as to how or which of Earth’s ice sheets contributed to higher sea levels during past warm climate periods. This is of particular importance for our modern world: the Antarctic ice sheet is currently the world’s largest freshwater reservoir, which, if completely melted, would raise the global sea level by over 60 meters (200 feet). Yet, geologic records of Antarctic ice sheet sensitivity to warm climates are particularly limited and difficult to obtain, because the direct records of ice sheet geometry smaller than the modern one are still buried beneath the mile-thick ice covering the continent. Therefore, it remains unclear how much this ice sheet contributed to past sea level rise during warm climate periods or how it will respond to the anticipated near-future climate warming. In the proposed research we seek to develop sub-ice chemical precipitates—minerals that form in lakes found beneath the ice sheet—as a climatic archive, one that records how the Antarctic ice sheet responded to past climatic change. These sub-ice mineral formations accumulated beneath the ice for over a hundred thousand years, recording the changes in chemical and isotopic subglacial properties that occur in response to climate change. Eventually these samples were eroded by the ice sheet and moved to the Antarctic ice margin where they were collected and made available to study. This research will utilize advanced geochemical, isotopic and geochronologic techniques to develop record of the Antarctica ice sheet’s past response to warm climate periods, directly informing efforts to understand how Antarctica will response to future warming. Efforts to improve sea level forecasting on a warming planet have focused on determining the temperature, sea level and extent of polar ice sheets during Earth’s past warm periods. Large uncertainties, however, in reconstructions of past and future sea levels, result from the poorly constrained climate sensitivity of the Antarctic Ice sheet (AIS). This research project aims to develop the use of subglacial precipitates as an archive the Antarctic ice sheet (AIS) past response to climate change. The subglacial precipitates from East Antarctica form in water bodies beneath Antarctic ice and in doing so provide an entirely new and unique measure of how the AIS responds to climate change. In preliminary examination of these precipitates, we identified multiple samples consisting of cyclic opal and calcite that spans hundreds of thousands of years in duration. Our preliminary geochemical characterization of these samples indicates that the observed mineralogic changes result from a cyclic change in subglacial water compositions between isotopically and chemically distinct waters. Opal-forming waters are reduced (Ce* <1 and high Fe/Mn) and exhibit elevated 234U/238U compositions similar to the saline groundwater brines found at the periphery of the AIS. Calcite-forming waters, are rather, oxidized and exhibit δ18O compositions consistent with derivation from the depleted polar plateau (< -50 ‰). 234U-230Th dates permit construction of a robust timeseries describing these mineralogic and compositional changes through time. Comparisons of these time series with other Antarctic climate records (e.g., ice core records) reveal that calcite forming events align with millennial scale changes in local temperature or “Antarctic isotopic maximums”, which represent Southern Hemisphere warm periods resulting in increased Atlantic Meridional overturing circulation. Ultimately, this project seeks to develop a comprehensive model as to how changes in the thermohaline cycle induce a glaciologic response which in turn induces a change in the composition of subglacial waters and the mineralogic phase recorded within the precipitate archive. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
The ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland are losing mass and contributing to accelerating global sea-level rise. Satellite altimetry provides precise measurement of ice-sheet volume change, but computing ice-sheet mass change—the quantity relevant for estimating the ice sheet’s sea-level contribution—requires knowing the density of the ice sheet. The density near the ice-sheet surface also affects age estimates of air bubbles recovered in ice cores, which are a key source of information on past climate changes. Ice-sheet density is primarily controlled by the rate at which firn (snow that has persisted for a year or more on ice sheets) compacts into ice, but there is currently no widely accepted theory of how this compaction occurs. The goal of this project is thus to advance understanding of how firn densifies. The team will conduct laboratory experiments and analyze ice-penetrating radar and ice-core data from Antarctica. A key desired outcome of the project is a new model of firn densification that can be used to improve satellite-based altimetry measurements of present-day ice-sheet change and reconstructions of past climate changes from ice cores. This project will combine laboratory experiments, numerical modeling, and geophysical techniques to determine the rheology of firn as it compacts to form ice. The team will use two methods to measure firn compaction: (1) lab-based experiments and (2) analysis of ice-core and radar data. For the lab-based work, the team will conduct a suite of compaction experiments on synthetic firn samples under uni-axial strain and constant temperature and axial stress. They will also measure the grain-size evolution. By running a large number of experiments (> 25), the team will constrain key parameters that determine how firn compaction rate depends on density, temperature, grain size, and axial stress. The experiments will be conducted in a table-top apparatus at temperatures as low as -40 degrees C and axial stresses up to 4 MPa. For the field-data-based component, the team will analyze ice-core and ice-penetrating radar data to produce the first coincident set of radar-derived firn compaction rates, borehole temperatures, firn densities, and firn grain sizes. Results from lab and field data will be tied together using a numerical firn compaction model. This model is formulated using conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, along with an explicit description of firn rheology and grain-size evolution. Constraints on firn rheology will be incorporated into this model and the team will use it to examine fundamental questions about how changes in the climate affect firn density. This is a crucial unknown that contributes significant measurement uncertainty in estimates of past and present climate change. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
As glaciers creep across the landscape, they can act as earthmovers, plucking up rocks and grinding them into fine sediments. Glaciers have moved across the Antarctic landscape over thousands to millions of years, leaving these ground-up sediments in their wake. This study builds on pilot discoveries by the investigators that revealed remarkably large and variable measurements of surface area in glacially-derived fine-grained sediments found in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV), one of the few landscapes on the Antarctic continent not currently covered by ice. Surface area is key to chemical weathering, the process by which rock is converted to soils as ions are carried away in streams and groundwater. These chemical weathering processes are also one of the primary means by which the Earth system naturally removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Hence, high surface areas observed in sediments implies high "weatherability" which in turn translates to more potential carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere. Therefore, chemical weathering in high surface area glacial sediments may have significant impacts on Earth's carbon cycle. The researchers will measure the chemical and physical properties of sediments previously collected from the Dry Valleys to understand what factors lead to production of sediment with high-surface area and potential "weather ability" and investigate how sediment produced in these glacial systems could ultimately impact Earth's carbon budget. Results from this research will help scientists (including modelers) refine predictions of the effects of melting glaciers- and attendant exposure of glacial sediment? on atmospheric carbon levels. These results may also contribute to applied research efforts on development of carbon-dioxide removal technologies utilizing principles of rock weathering. In addition to the scientific benefits, this research will involve several students at the undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral levels, including science education undergraduates, thus contributing to training of the next-generation STEM workforce. Physical weathering produces fresh surfaces, greatly enhancing specific surface area (SSA) and reactive surface area (RSA) of primary minerals. Quantifying SSA and RSA of sediments is key to determining dissolution and leaching rates during natural weathering, but few data exist on distribution of sediment SA, particularly in glacial and fluvial systems. Pilot data from glacial stream systems in Taylor Valley and Wright Valley (located in the MDV) exhibit remarkably high and variable values in both SSA and RSA, values that in some cases greatly exceed values from muds in temperate glacial systems. This discovery motivates the current research, which aims to investigate the hypothesis that high and variable SAs of muds within Wright and Taylor Valleys reflect textural and/or compositional inheritance from the differing depositional settings within the MDV, biologic controls, dust additions, and/or pedogenic processes. These hypotheses will be tested by sedimentologically, mineralogically, and geochemically characterizing muds from glacially derived sediment deposited in various environments (cold vs. wet based glaciation; fluvial, lacustrine, dust, and drift deposits) and of varying age (Miocene to Modern) from the MDV and quantifying variation of SA and reactivity. Comparisons with analyzed muds from temperate glacial systems will enable polar-temperate comparisons. Analyses will focus on muds of previously collected sediment from the MDVs. Grain size and SSA will be measured by Laser Analysis and N2 adsorption BET, respectively. After carbonate removal, samples will be re-analyzed for SSA, and muds characterized geochemically. Mineralogy and bulk chemistry will also be assessed on co-occurring sand fractions, and textural attributes documented. SSA-normalized dissolution experiments will be used to compare solutes released from sediments to determine RSAs. Results will be integrated with the various sedimentologic and geochemical analyses to test the posed hypotheses. Ultimately, this research should shed light on how weathering in Antarctic systems contributes to global carbon cycling.
Baker/1141411 This award supports a project to undertake a systematic examination of the effects of soluble impurities, particularly sulfuric acid, on the creep of polycrystalline ice as function of temperature, strain rate and impurity concentration. The working hypothesis is that soluble impurities will increase the flow rate of polycrystalline ice compared to high-purity ice, that this effect will be temperature dependent and that the impurities by affecting the re-crystallization and grain growth will change the fabric of the ice. Both H2SO4-doped and high-purity poly-crystalline ice will be produced by freezing sheets of ice, breaking them up, sieving the ice particles and then sintering them in a mold into fine-grained cylindrical specimens with at least ten grains across their diameter. The resulting microstructures (dislocation structure, grain size and shape, grain boundary character and micro-structural location of the acid) will be characterized using a variety of techniques including: optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, including secondary electron imaging, electron backscattered patterns, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, electron channeling contrast imaging, and X-ray topography. The creep of both the H2SO4-doped and the high-purity polycrystalline ice will be undertaken at a range of temperatures and stresses. The ice?s response to the creep deformation (grain boundary sliding, dislocation motion, re-crystallization, grain boundary migration, impurity redistribution) will be studied using a combination of methods. The creep behavior will be modeled and related to the microstructure. Of particular interest is how impurities affect the activation energy for creep. The intellectual merit of the work is that it will lead to a better understanding of glacier ice and will enable glaciologists to model the influence of impurities on the flow and fabric development in polycrystalline ice. The broader impacts of the project include the knowledge that will be gained of the effects of impurities on the flow of ice which will allow paleoclimatologists to better interpret ice core data and will allow scientists developing predictive models to better address the flow of ice sheets under various climate change scenarios. The project will also lead to the education and training of a Ph.D. student, several undergraduates and some high school students. Results from the research will be published in refereed journals. Several undergraduates, typically two per year, will also perform the work. Dartmouth aggressively courts minority students at all degree levels, and we will seek women or minority group undergraduates for this project. The undergraduates will be supported by Dartmouth?s nationally-honored Women In Science Project or by REU funding. The undergraduates? research will integrate closely with the Ph.D. student?s studies. Hanover High School students will also be involved in the project and develop an educational kit to introduce students to the properties of ice. Results from the research will be published in refereed journals and presented at conferences.
Nontechnical Description Glacier ice loss from Antarctica has the potential to lead to a significant rise in global sea level. One line of evidence for accelerated glacier ice loss has been an increase in the rate at which the land has been rising across the Antarctic Peninsula as measured by GPS receivers. However, GPS observations of uplift are limited to the last two decades. One goal of this study is to determine how these newly observed rates of uplift compare to average rates of uplift across the Antarctic Peninsula over a longer time interval. Researchers will reconstruct past sea levels using the age and elevation of ancient beaches now stranded above sea level on the low-lying coastal hills of the Antarctica Peninsula to determine the rate of uplift over the last 5,000 years. The researchers will also analyze the structure of the beaches using ground-penetrating radar and the characteristics of beach sediments to understand how sea-level rise and past climate changes are recorded in beach deposits. The benefits of these new records will be threefold: (1) they will help determine the natural variability of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and relative sea level (2) they will provide new insight about uplift and the structure of the Earth's interior; and 3) they will help researchers refine the methods used to determine the age of geologic deposits. The study results will be shared in outreach events at K-12 schools and with visitors of the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum. Three graduate students will be supported through this project. Technical description Paleo sea-level data is critical for reconstructing the size and extent of past ice sheets, documenting increased uplift following glacial retreat, and correcting gravity-based measurements of ice-mass loss for the impacts of post-glacial rebound. However, there are only 14 sites with relative sea-level data for Antarctica compared to over 500 sites used in a recent study of the North American Ice-Sheet complex. The purpose of this project is to use optically stimulated luminescence to date a series of newly discovered raised beaches along the eastern Antarctic Peninsula and an already known, but only preliminarily dated, series of raised beaches in the South Shetland Islands. Data to be collected at the raised beaches include the age and elevation, ground-penetrating radar profiles, and the roundness of cobbles and the lithology of ice-rafted debris. The study will test three hypotheses: (1) uplift rates have increased in modern times relative to the late Holocene across the Antarctic Peninsula, (2) the sea-level history at the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula is distinctly different than that of the South Shetland Islands, and (3) cobble roundness and the source of ice-rafted debris on raised beaches varied systematically through time reflecting the climate history of the northern Antarctic Peninsula.
This project contributes to the joint initiative launched by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.K. Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to substantially improve decadal and longer-term projections of ice loss and sea-level rise originating from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. Satellite observations extending over the last 25 years show that Thwaites Glacier is rapidly thinning and accelerating. Over this same period, the Thwaites grounding line, the point at which the glacier transitions from sitting on the seabed to floating, has retreated. Oceanographic studies demonstrate that the main driver of these changes is incursion of warm water from the deep ocean that flows beneath the floating ice shelf and causes basal melting. The period of satellite observation is not long enough to determine how a large glacier, such as Thwaites, responds to long-term and near-term changes in the ocean or the atmosphere. As a result, records of glacier change from the pre-satellite era are required to build a holistic understanding of glacier behavior. Ocean-floor sediments deposited at the retreating grounding line and further offshore contain these longer-term records of changes in the glacier and the adjacent ocean. An additional large unknown is the topography of the seafloor and how it influences interactions of landward-flowing warm water with Thwaites Glacier and affects its stability. Consequently, this project focuses on the seafloor offshore from Thwaites Glacier and the records of past glacial and ocean change contained in the sediments deposited by the glacier and surrounding ocean. Uncertainty in model projections of the future of Thwaites Glacier will be significantly reduced by cross-disciplinary investigations seaward of the current grounding line, including extracting the record of decadal to millennial variations in warm water incursion, determining the pre-satellite era history of grounding-line migration, and constraining the bathymetric pathways that control flow of warm water to the grounding line. Sedimentary records and glacial landforms preserved on the seafloor will allow reconstruction of changes in drivers and the glacial response to them over a range of timescales, thus providing reference data that can be used to initiate and evaluate the reliability of models. Such data will further provide insights on the influence of poorly understood processes on marine ice sheet dynamics. This project will include an integrated suite of marine and sub-ice shelf research activities aimed at establishing boundary conditions seaward of the Thwaites Glacier grounding line, obtaining records of the external drivers of change, improving knowledge of processes leading to collapse of Thwaites Glacier, and determining the history of past change in grounding line migration and conditions at the glacier base. These objectives will be achieved through high-resolution geophysical surveys of the seafloor and analysis of sediments collected in cores from the inner shelf seaward of the Thwaites Glacier grounding line using ship-based equipment, and from beneath the ice shelf using a corer deployed through the ice shelf via hot water drill holes. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Marine communities along the western Antarctic Peninsula are highly productive ecosystems which support a diverse assemblage of charismatic animals such as penguins, seals, and whales as well as commercial fisheries such as that on Antarctic krill. Fjords (long, narrow, deep inlets of the sea between high cliffs) along the central coast of the Peninsula appear to be intense, potentially climate sensitive, hotspots of biological production and biodiversity, yet the structure and dynamics of these fjord ecosystems are very poorly understood. Because of this intense biological activity and the charismatic fauna it supports, these fjords are also major destinations for a large Antarctic tourism industry. This project is an integrated field and modeling program to evaluate physical oceanographic processes, glacial inputs, water column community dynamics, and seafloor bottom community structure and function in these important yet little understood fjord systems. These Antarctic fjords have characteristics that are substantially different from well-studied Arctic fjords, likely yielding much different responses to climate warming. This project will provide major new insights into the dynamics and climate sensitivity of Antarctic fjord ecosystems, highlighting contrasts with Arctic sub-polar fjords, and potentially transforming our understanding of the ecological role of fjords in the rapidly warming west Antarctic coastal marine landscape. The project will also further the NSF goal of training new generations of scientists, providing scientific training for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students. This includes the unique educational opportunity for undergraduates to participate in research cruises in Antarctica and the development of a novel summer graduate course on fjord ecosystems. Internet based outreach activities will be enhanced and extended by the participation of a professional photographer who will produce magazine articles, websites, radio broadcasts, and other forms of public outreach on the fascinating Antarctic ecosystem. This project will involve a 15-month field program to test mechanistic hypotheses concerning oceanographic and glaciological forcing, and phytoplankton and benthic community response in the Antarctic fjords. Those efforts will be followed by a coupled physical/biological modeling effort to evaluate the drivers of biogeochemical cycles in the fjords and to explore their potential sensitivity to enhanced meltwater and sediment inputs. Fieldwork over two oceanographic cruises will utilize moorings, weather stations, and glacial, sea-ice and seafloor time-lapse cameras to obtain an integrated view of fjord ecosystem processes. The field team will also make multiple shipboard measurements and will use towed and autonomous underwater vehicles to intensively evaluate fjord ecosystem structure and function during spring/summer and autumn seasons. These integrated field and modeling studies are expected to elucidate fundamental properties of water column and sea bottom ecosystem structure and function in the fjords, and to identify key physical-chemical-glaciological forcing in these rapidly warming ecosystems.
Intellectual Merit: Southern Ocean processes play an important role in Late Quaternary glacial-interglacial climate change. However, the direct influence of newly upwelled warm nutrient-rich Circumpolar Deep Water on the Antarctic cryosphere remains speculative. The PI proposes to test the hypothesis that Circumpolar Deep Water-derived ocean heat negatively impacts the mass-balance of Antarctica?s ice sheets during deglaciations using precisely dated late Quaternary paleoceanographic studies of Antarctic margin sediments and a suite of geochemical proxies measured on three existing glacial marine sediment cores from the Prydz Channel, Antarctica. Specifically, the PI will use these data to reconstruct the Late Quaternary history of the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system; evaluate the timing, speed, and style of retreat of the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system during the last deglaciation, and to assess the impact of Circumpolar Deep Water intrusions on the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system in the Late Quaternary. Diatom bound radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence techniques will be used to obtain precise stratigraphic age control for the Prydz Channel siliceous muddy ooze intervals. In addition, the PI will measure sedimentary 10Be concentrations to determine the origin of the siliceous muddy ooze units and to track past changes in the position of the ice shelf front. Broader impacts: This proposal will support an early career female scientist and will provide professional development and research experiences for women/minority graduate and undergraduate students. The PI will take advantage of USF?s Oceanography Camp for Girls.
Intellectual Merit: Southern Ocean processes play an important role in Late Quaternary glacial-interglacial climate change. However, the direct influence of newly upwelled warm nutrient-rich Circumpolar Deep Water on the Antarctic cryosphere remains speculative. The PI proposes to test the hypothesis that Circumpolar Deep Water-derived ocean heat negatively impacts the mass-balance of Antarctica?s ice sheets during deglaciations using precisely dated late Quaternary paleoceanographic studies of Antarctic margin sediments and a suite of geochemical proxies measured on three existing glacial marine sediment cores from the Prydz Channel, Antarctica. Specifically, the PI will use these data to reconstruct the Late Quaternary history of the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system; evaluate the timing, speed, and style of retreat of the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system during the last deglaciation, and to assess the impact of Circumpolar Deep Water intrusions on the Lambert Glacier/Amery Ice Shelf system in the Late Quaternary. Diatom bound radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence techniques will be used to obtain precise stratigraphic age control for the Prydz Channel siliceous muddy ooze intervals. In addition, the PI will measure sedimentary 10Be concentrations to determine the origin of the siliceous muddy ooze units and to track past changes in the position of the ice shelf front. Broader impacts: This proposal will support an early career female scientist and will provide professional development and research experiences for women/minority graduate and undergraduate students. The PI will take advantage of USF?s Oceanography Camp for Girls.
Alley/1542778 This award supports a three-year effort to study physical properties of the South Pole ice core to help provide a high-time-resolution history of trace gases and other paleoclimatic indicators from an especially cold site with high preservation potential for important signals. The physical-properties studies include visual inspection to identify any flow disturbances and for identifying annual layers and other features, and combined bubble, grain and ice crystal orientation studies to better understand the processes occurring in the ice that affect the climate record and the ice-sheet behavior. Success of these efforts will provide necessary support for dating and quality control to others studying the ice core, as well as determining the climate history of the site, flow state, and key physical processes in ice. The intellectual merits of the project include better understanding of physical processes, paleoclimatic reconstruction, dating of the ice, and quality assurance. Visual inspection of the core will help identify evidence of flow disturbances that would disrupt the integrity of the climate record and will reveal volcanic horizons and other features of interest. Annual layer counting will be conducted to help estimate accumulation rate over time as recorded in the ice core. Measurements of C-axis fabric, grain size and shapes, and bubble characteristics will provide information about processes occurring in the ice sheet as well as the history of ice flow, current flow state and how the ice is flowing and how easily it will flow in the future. Analysis of this data in conjunction with microCT data will help to reveal grain-scale processes. The broader impacts of the project include support for an early-career, post-doctoral researcher, and improved paleoclimatic data of societal relevance. The results will be incorporated into the active program of education and outreach which have educated many students, members of the public and policy makers through the sharing of information and educational materials about all aspects of ice core science and paleoclimate.
0539578<br/>Alley <br/>This award supports a five-year collaborative project to study the physical-properties of the planned deep ice core and the temperature of the ice in the divide region of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The intellectual merit of the proposed research is to provide fundamental information on the state of the ice sheet, to validate the integrity of the climate record, to help reconstruct the climate record, and to understand the flow state and history of the ice sheet. This information will initially be supplied to other investigators and then to the public and to appropriate databases, and will be published in the refereed scientific literature. The objectives of the proposed research are to aid in dating of the core through counting of annual layers, to identify any exceptionally warm intervals in the past through counting of melt layers, to learn as much as possible about the flow state and history of the ice through measurement of size, shape and arrangements of bubbles, clathrate inclusions, grains and their c-axes, to identify any flow disturbances through these indicators, and to learn the history of snow accumulation and temperature from analyses of bubbles and borehole temperatures combined with flow modeling and use of data from other collaborators. These results will then be synthesized and communicated. Failure to examine cores can lead to erroneous identification of flow features as climate changes, so careful examination is required. Independent reconstruction of accumulation rate provides important data on climate change, and improves confidence in interpretation of other climate indicators. Borehole temperatures are useful recorders of temperature history. Flow state and history are important in understanding climate history and potential contribution of ice to sea-level change. By contributing to all of these and additional issues, the proposed research will be of considerable value. The broader impacts of the research include making available to the public improved knowledge on societally central questions involving abrupt climate change and sea-level rise. The project will also contribute to the education of advanced students, will utilize results in education of introductory students, and will make vigorous efforts in outreach, informal science education, and supplying information to policy-makers as requested, thus contributing to a more-informed society.
1043528/Alley This award supports a project to complete the physical-properties studies of the WAIS Divide deep ice core, now being collected in West Antarctica. Ongoing work funded by NSF, under a grant that is ending, has produced visible stratigraphy dating, inspection of the core for any melt layers, volcanic horizons, flow disturbances or other features, analysis of bubble number-densities allowing reconstruction of a two-millennial cooling trend in the latter Holocene at the site, characterization of other bubble characteristics (size, etc.), density studies, characterization of snow-surface changes at the site, preliminary c-axis studies, and more. The current proposal seeks to complete this work, once the rest of the core is recovered. The intellectual merit of the proposed activity starts with quality assurance for the core, by visual detection of any evidence of flow disturbances that would disrupt the integrity of the climate record. Inspection will also reveal any melt layers, volcanic horizons, etc. Annual-layer dating will be conducted; thus far, the visible strata have not been as useful as some other indicators, but the possibility (based on experience in Greenland) that visible examination will allow detection of thinner annual layers than other techniques motivates the effort. Bubble number-density will be used to reconstruct temperature changes through the rest of the bubbly part of the core, providing important paleoclimatic data for earlier parts of the Holocene. Coordinated interpretation of c-axis fabrics, grain sizes and shapes, and bubble characteristics will be used to learn about the history of ice flow, the processes of ice flow, and the softness of the ice for additional deformation. Analysis of surface data already collected will improve interpretation of the layering of the core. It is possible that the annual-layer dating will not be sufficiently successful, and that the core will be undisturbed with no melt layers; if so, then these efforts will not yield major publications. However, success of the other efforts should produce improved understanding of the history and stability of the ice sheet, and key processes controlling these, and the quality assurance provided by the visual examination is important for the project as a whole. The broader impacts of the proposed activity include education of a PhD student and multiple undergraduates, and research opportunities for a junior faculty member at an undergraduate institution. The proposed activity will help support an especially vigorous education and outreach effort providing undergraduate instruction for over 1000 students per year, reaching thousands more citizens and many policymakers, and preparing educational materials used at many levels.
Pettit/0636795<br/><br/>This award supports a project to constrain the accumulation rate, thickness, and temperature history for Siple Dome using a vertical velocity profile that includes the effects of an evolving fabric on deformation through time, to invert the depth-profile of fabric determined from sonic velocity measurements and grain size observed in thin sections in Siple Dome for the surface temperature and accumulation rate changes in the past, focusing on the apparent abrupt climate change events at 22ka and 15ka. The intellectual merit of the work is that it will extract past climate information from a number of physical properties of the deep ice using a coupled fabric evolution and ice-sheet flow model. The focus will be on the deep ice-age ice at Siple Dome, where the ice-core record shows puzzling signals and where modeling results imply intriguing deformation patterns. The method will also be applied to the records from Byrd Station and Taylor Dome to ultimately form a basis for future analysis of the West Antarctic Divide core. The broader impacts of the project are that it will ultimately contribute to our understanding of the effects of anisotropy on ice flow dynamics in West Antarctica. It will contribute to our understanding of the connection between ice flow and the paleoclimate record in ice cores, particularly with respect to the relationship between the chemical record and ice deformation. And it will contribute a new ice-flow model that includes the effects of anisotropy and fabric evolution. The project will also contribute to advancing the career of a new, young, female investigator and will support a couple of graduate students. Finally, the work will encouraging diversity in the physical sciences by directly helping to support the Girls on Ice a program that encourages young women to explore science and the natural world.
The proposed research seeks to test the hypothesis that chemical and physical weathering in proximal alluvial systems will show systematic and measurable variations between glacial and nonglacial systems. To accomplish this, the investigation will attempt to quantify the natural variation of chemical and physical weathering in granitoid-sourced proximal alluvial sediments in end-member glacial and nonglacial systems, when other, "non-climatic" factors (e.g. provenance, drainage basin area and relief, sample grain size, sediment facies) are controlled. If chemical weathering in the proposed hot-humid, hot-arid, hot semi-arid nonglacial systems and the cool-wet, cold semi-arid, and cold-arid glacial systems show systematic variations, then chemical indices may be used to help differentiate paleoclimatic conditions. Continued reliance on students provides a broader impact of this proposed research and firmly grounds this effort in its educational mission.
0538494<br/>Meese<br/>This award supports a project for physical properties research on snow pits and firn/ice cores with specific objectives that include stratigraphic analysis including determination of accumulation rates, annual layers, depth hoar, ice and wind crusts and rates of grain growth with depth. Studies of firn densification rates and how these parameters relate to the meteorology and climatology over the last 200 years of snow accumulation in Antarctica will also be investigated. The project will also determine the seasonality of accumulation by co-registration of stratigraphy and chemistry and determination of chemical species at the grain boundaries, how these may change with depth/densification (and therefore temperature), precipitation, and may affect grain growth. Fabric analyses will be made, including variation with depth, location on undulations and if any variation exists with climate/chemistry. The large spatial coverage of the US ITASE program offers the opportunity to determine how these parameters are affected by a large range of temperature, precipitation and topographic effects. The intellectual merit of the project includes the fact that ITASE is the terrestrial equivalent of a polar research vessel that provides a unique, logistically efficient, multi-dimensional (x, y, z and time) view of the atmosphere, ice sheet and their histories. Physical properties measurements/ analyses are an integral part of understanding the dynamic processes to which the accumulated snow is subjected. Recent advancements in the field along with multiple core sites provide an excellent opportunity to gain a much broader understanding of the spatial, temporal and physical variables that impact firnification and the possible resultant impact on climatic interpretation. In terms of broader impacts, the data collected by US ITASE and its international ITASE partners is available to a broad scientific community. US ITASE has an extensive program of public outreach and provides significant opportunities for many students to experience multidisciplinary Antarctic research. A graduate student, a post-doctoral fellow and at least one undergraduate would be funded by this work. Dr. Meese is also a member of the New England Science Collaborative, an organization that educates the public on climate change based on recent scientific advancements.
The goal of this investigation is to understand the role of snow in sea ice development processes and air-ice-ocean heat exchange interactions in the seasonal and perennial sea ice zones of the Ross Sea, the Amundsen Sea, and the Bellingshausen Sea. Observations and measurements of the characteristics of sea ice and snow will be combined with numerical models of sea-ice flooding and the entrainment of snow into the ice cover in order to gain an understanding of the sea-ice heat and mass balance, and to quantify the energy exchange within the antarctic sea-ice cover. The snow measurement program, using the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer, will include depth, grain size and morphology, density, temperature, thermal conductivity, water content, and stable isotope ratio. The ice measurement program will include thickness, salinity, temperature, density, brine content, and included gas volume, as well as such structural properties as the fraction of frazil, platelet, and congelation ice in the seasonal antarctic pack ice. Differences in ice types are the result of differences in the environment in which the ice forms: frazil ice is formed in supercooled sea water, normally through wind or wave-induced turbulence, while platelet and congelation ice is formed under quiescent conditions. The fraction of frazil ice is an important variable in the energy budget of the upper ocean, and contributes significantly to the stabilization of the surface layers. The numerical models will involve the thermodynamics of phase changes from liquid water to ice, along with the resulting energy transfer, brine expulsion, and the modulating effect of a snow cover. The results are expected to have broad relevance and application to understanding the effects of sea-ice processes in global change, and atmospheric, oceanographic, and remote sensing investigations of the Southern Ocean.
This project is a study of the effects of antarctic sea ice in the global climate system, through an examination of how the spatial distribution of ice and snow thickness and of open water is reflected in satellite-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. The field investigations will be carried out from the RVIB Nathaniel B. Palmer in winter 1998 and summer 1999, and will produce observations of the snow and ice distribution, the crystal structure, stable isotopes, salinity and temperature structure of ice cores, and the stratigraphy, grain size, and water content of the snow cover. The SAR images from ERS-2 and RADARSAT will be acquired at the McMurdo ground station, and processed at the Alaska SAR Facility. These will provide information about the large-scale ice motion field and the small-scale ice deformation field, both of which contribute to the observed ice thickness distribution. In addition, a study of the spatial and temporal variation of the backscattered microwave energy will contribute to the development of numerical models that simulate the dynamic and thermodynamic interactions among the sea ice, ocean, and atmosphere. The surface data is vital for the extraction of environmental information from the radar data, and for the ultimate validation of interactive models.
0124049<br/>Berger<br/><br/>This award supports a project to add to the understanding of what drives glacial cycles. Most researchers agree that Milankovitch seasonal forcing paces the ice ages but how these insolation changes are leveraged into abrupt global climate change remains unknown. A current popular view is that the climate of Antarctica and the Southern Ocean leads that of the rest of the world by a couple thousand years at Termination I and by even greater margins during previous terminations. This project will integrate the geomorphological record of glacial history with a series of cores taken from the lake bottoms in the Dry Valleys of the McMurdo Sound region of Antarctica. Using a modified Livingstone corer, transects of long cores will be obtained from Lakes Fryxell, Bonney, Joyce, and Vanda. A multiparameter approach will be employed which is designed to extract the greatest possible amount of former water-level, glaciological, and paleoenvironmental data from Dry Valleys lakes. Estimates of hydrologic changes will come from different proxies, including grain size, stratigraphy, evaporite mineralogy, stable isotope and trace element chemistry, and diatom assemblage analysis. The chronology, necessary to integrate the cores with the geomorphological record, as well as for comparisons with Antarctic ice-core and glacial records, will come from Uranium-Thorium, Uranium-Helium, and Carbon-14 dating of carbonates, as well as luminescence sediment dating. Evaluation of the link between lake-level and climate will come from hydrological and energy-balance modelling. Combination of the more continuous lake-core sequences with the spatially extensive geomorphological record will result in an integrated Antarctic lake-level and paleoclimate dataset that extends back at least 30,000 years. This record will be compared to Dry Valleys glacier records and to the Antarctic ice cores to address questions of regional climate variability, and then to other Southern Hemisphere and Northern Hemisphere records to assess interhemispheric synchrony or asynchrony of climate change.
Polar Programs, provides funds for a study of sediment cores from the McMurdo Dry Valley lakes. The Dry Valley lakes have a long history of fluctuating levels reflecting regional climate change. The history of lake level fluctuations is generally known from the LGM to early Holocene through 14C dates of buried organic matter in paleolake deposits. However, the youngest paleolake deposits available are between 8000 to 9000 14C yr BP, suggesting that lake levels were at or below current levels for much of the Holocene. Thus, any information about the lake history and climate controls for the Holocene is largely contained in bottom sediments. This project will attempt to extract paleoclimatic information from sediment cores for a series of closed-basin dry valley lakes under study by the McMurdo LTER site. This work involves multiple approaches to dating the sediments and use of several climate proxy approaches to extract century to millennial scale chronologies from Antarctic lacustrine deposits. This research uses knowledge on lake processes gained over the past eight years by the LTER to calibrate climate proxies from lake sediments. Proxies for lake depth and ice thickness, which are largely controlled by summer climate, are the focus of this work. This study focuses on four key questions: 1. How sensitively do dry valley lake sediments record Holocene environmental and climate variability? 2. What is the paleoclimatic variability in the dry valleys on a century and millennial scale throughout the Holocene? Especially, is the 1200 yr evaporative event unique, or are there other such events in the record? 3. Does a mid-Holocene (7000 to 5000 yr BP) climate shift occur in the dry valleys as documented elsewhere in the polar regions? 4. Is there evidence, in the dry valley lake record of the 1500 yr Holocene periodicities recently recognized in the Taylor Dome record? Core collection will be performed with LTER support using a state-of-the-art percussion/piston corer system that has been used successfully to retrieve long cores (10 to 20 m) from other remote polar locations. Analyses to be done include algal pigments, biogenic silica, basic geochemistry, organic and inorganic carbon and nitrogen content, stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, carbonate phases, salt content and mineralogy, and grain size. In addition this project will pursue a multi-chronometer approach to assess the age of the core through optically-stimulated luminescence, 226Ra/230Th , 230Th/234U, and 14C techniques. New experimentation with U-series techniques will be performed to allow for greater precision in the dry valley lake sediments. Compound specific isotopes and lipid biomarkers , which are powerful tools for inferring past lake conditions, will also be assessed. Combined, these analyses will provide a new century to millennial scale continuous record of the Holocene climate change in the Ross Sea region.
This award supports a project to conduct laboratory experiments to investigate textures formed in ice during superplastic flow. Superplastic flow has recently been discovered in the laboratory and can be considered a new flow mechanism for ice. A simple extrapolation of these new data for superplastic flow from laboratory to natural conditions suggests that glaciers and ice sheets flow via this mechanism. Furthermore, several grain-scale features in ice (e.g., crystal shape) produced during superplastic flow in the laboratory are remarkably similar to those observed in glaciers and ice sheets. Despite this exciting discovery, however, important questions remain before we can apply with full confidence these new flow data in mathematical models of glacier and ice sheet flow. The textures seen in laboratory studies will be compared with those observed in field studies of glaciers and ice sheets. These comparisons, coupled with comparisons of the new superplastic flow data from the laboratory with flow measurements from field studies, will provide a powerful method for further assessing the importance of superplastic flow in nature and thereby improve our understanding of glacier and ice sheet dynamics and global climate change. Experiments will be conducted by the PI and an undergraduate research assistant. Experimental results will be published in relevant refereed journals, presented at glaciology meetings and incorporated into coursework.
This award supports a program of field surveys of an area within the large, well-developed megadune field southeast of Vostok station. The objectives are to determine the physical characteristics of the firn across the dunes, including typical climate indicators such as stable isotopes and major chemical species, and to install instruments to measure the time variation of near-surface wind and temperature with depth, to test and refine hypotheses for megadune formation. Field study will consist of surface snowpit and shallow core sampling, ground penetrating radar (GPR) profiling, GPS topographic and ice motion surveys, AWS installation, accumulation/ ablation measurements, subsurface temperature, and firn permeability studies. Field work in two successive seasons is proposed. Continent-wide remote sensing studies of the dunes will be continued, using the new group of instruments that are now, or will shortly be available (e.g., MODIS, MISR, GLAS, AMSR). The earlier study of topographic, passive microwave, and SAR characteristics will be extended, with the intent of determining the relationships of dune amplitude and wavelength to climate parameters, and further development of models of dune formation. Diffusion, ventilation, and vapor transport processes within the dune firn will be modeled as well. A robust program of outreach is planned and reporting to inform both the public and scientists of the fundamental in-situ and remote sensing characteristics of these uniquely Antarctic features will be an important part of the work. Because of their extreme nature, their broad extent, and their potential impact on the climate record, it is important to improve our current understanding of these. Megadunes are a manifestation of an extreme terrestrial climate and may provide insight on past terrestrial climate, or to processes active on other planets. Megadunes are likely to represent an end-member in firn diagenesis, and as such, may have much to teach us about the processes involved.
0135989<br/>Wilen<br/><br/>This is a collaborative proposal by Principal Investigators at the University of Washington and Ohio University. Detailed knowledge about the interactions between micro-structure of ice and its deformation is needed to assess the integrity of stratigraphic layering and the depth-age relationship in ice cores, which is essential for interpreting the paleoclimate record. The Principal Investigators will use micro-structure to study fabric, the orientation distribution of crystal c-axes, and texture, the size and shape of crystals. Numerical modeling of ice deformation is a useful tool in understanding these interactions. Accurate modeling of ice deformation is complicated by factors, such as the fabric, grain size, dynamic recrystallization, stress level, and precise knowledge of initial conditions. For example, ice fabric evolves as the ice is strained and the deformation depends on the fabric. This complicated feedback mechanism must be understood to correctly model ice deformation. In another example, the usual assumption is that the initial fabric is isotropic or random, but there are excellent examples of near-surface ice in the ice cores that are apparently not isotropic. One must know the initial fabric to calculate the deformation rate in ice sheets. Dr. Wilen will combine results of his new automatic fabric analyzer (AFA) with predictions of detailed ice deformation models (Dr. Thorsteinsson) to refine and better constrain such models. The AFA gives new information in thin sections because the precision and number of measured c-axis orientations are greatly improved. The Principal Investigators will analyze existing data and collect new data on fabric and texture from ice cores to address questions regarding near-surface fabric, deformation mechanisms, dynamic recrystallization, and potential sources of layer disturbances. The data will be used to constrain models of fabric evolution and recrystallization processes. With the more refined models, scientists can address different questions and important problems related to ice deformation and ice cores. For example, the recent agreement between the climate records from the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) and Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) ice cores of the upper-90%, and the disagreement in the lower-10% emphasizes the need to understand and predict the mechanisms and probable depths of disruption in these and future deep ice cores. Evidence suggests that the stratigraphic disturbances arise from the anisotropic nature of ice crystals at a variety of scales. To properly model the deformation of anisotropic ice, the influence of fabric on deformation must be well known.