{"dp_type": "Project", "free_text": "Outlet Glaciers"}
[{"awards": "2053169 Kingslake, Jonathan", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "When ice sheets and glaciers lose ice faster than it accumulates from snowfall, they shrink and contribute to sea-level rise. This has consequences for coastal communities around the globe by, for example, increasing the frequency of damaging storm surges. Sea-level rise is already underway and a major challenge for the geoscience community is improving predictions of how this will evolve. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is the largest potential contributor to sea-level rise and its future is highly uncertain. It loses ice through two main mechanisms: the formation of icebergs and melting at the base of floating ice shelves on its periphery. Ice flows under gravity towards the ocean and the rate of ice flow controls how fast ice sheets and glaciers shrink. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice flow is focused into outlet glaciers and ice streams, which flow much faster than surrounding areas. Moreover, parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet speed up and slow down substantially on hourly to seasonal time scales, particularly where meltwater from the surface reaches the base of the ice. Meltwater reaching the base changes ice flow by altering basal water pressure and consequently the friction exerted on the ice by the rock and sediment beneath. This phenomenon has been observed frequently in Greenland but not in Antarctica. Recent satellite observations suggest this phenomenon also occurs on outlet glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula. Meltwater reaching the base of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is likely to become more common as air temperature and surface melting are predicted to increase around Antarctica this century. This project aims to confirm the recent satellite observations, establish a baseline against which to compare future changes, and improve understanding of the direct influence of meltwater on Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics. This is a project jointly funded by the National Science Foundation?s Directorate for Geosciences (NSF/GEO) and the National Environment Research Council (NERC) of the United Kingdom (UK) via the NSF/GEO-NERC Lead Agency Agreement. This Agreement allows a single joint US/UK proposal to be submitted and peer-reviewed by the Agency whose investigator has the largest proportion of the budget. Upon successful joint determination of an award recommendation, each Agency funds the proportion of the budget that supports scientists at institutions in their respective countries.\r\n\r\nThis project will include a field campaign on Flask Glacier, an Antarctic Peninsula outlet glacier, and a continent-wide remote sensing survey. These activities will allow the team to test three hypotheses related to the Antarctic Ice Sheet?s dynamic response to surface meltwater: (1) short-term changes in ice velocity indicated by satellite data result from surface meltwater reaching the bed, (2) this is widespread in Antarctica today, and (3) this results in a measurable increase in mean annual ice discharge. The project is a collaboration between US- and UK-based researchers and will be supported logistically by the British Antarctic Survey. The project aims to provide insights into both the drivers and implications of short-term changes in ice flow velocity caused by surface melting. For example, showing conclusively that meltwater directly influences Antarctic ice dynamics would have significant implications for understanding the response of Antarctica to atmospheric warming, as it did in Greenland when the phenomenon was first detected there twenty years ago. This work will also potentially influence other fields, as surface meltwater reaching the bed of the Antarctic Ice Sheet may affect ice rheology, subglacial hydrology, submarine melting, calving, ocean circulation, and ocean biogeochemistry. The project aims to have broader impacts on science and society by supporting early-career scientists, UK-US collaboration, education and outreach, and adoption of open data science approaches within the glaciological community.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "ICE SHEETS; GLACIER MOTION/ICE SHEET MOTION; Antarctic Peninsula; BASAL SHEAR STRESS", "locations": "Antarctic Peninsula", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Kingslake, Jonathan; Sole, Andrew; Livingstone, Stephen; Winter, Kate; Ely, Jeremy", "platforms": null, "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "NSFGEO-NERC: Investigating the Direct Influence of Meltwater on Antarctic Ice Sheet Dynamics", "uid": "p0010436", "west": null}, {"awards": "1542756 Koutnik, Michelle", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-180 -77,-179.5 -77,-179 -77,-178.5 -77,-178 -77,-177.5 -77,-177 -77,-176.5 -77,-176 -77,-175.5 -77,-175 -77,-175 -77.9,-175 -78.8,-175 -79.7,-175 -80.6,-175 -81.5,-175 -82.4,-175 -83.3,-175 -84.2,-175 -85.1,-175 -86,-175.5 -86,-176 -86,-176.5 -86,-177 -86,-177.5 -86,-178 -86,-178.5 -86,-179 -86,-179.5 -86,180 -86,177.5 -86,175 -86,172.5 -86,170 -86,167.5 -86,165 -86,162.5 -86,160 -86,157.5 -86,155 -86,155 -85.1,155 -84.2,155 -83.3,155 -82.4,155 -81.5,155 -80.6,155 -79.7,155 -78.8,155 -77.9,155 -77,157.5 -77,160 -77,162.5 -77,165 -77,167.5 -77,170 -77,172.5 -77,175 -77,177.5 -77,-180 -77))", "dataset_titles": "Beardmore Glacier model in \u0027icepack\u0027", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "200339", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "GitHub", "science_program": null, "title": "Beardmore Glacier model in \u0027icepack\u0027", "url": "https://github.com/danshapero/beardmore"}], "date_created": "Mon, 12 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "In this project we investigated glaciers that drain ice from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet through the Transantarctic Mountains into the present-day Ross Ice Shelf. The outlet glaciers that flow through the Transantarctic Mountains have thinned significantly over the past 15,000 years, especially as they retreated from Last Glacial Maximum highstands to their present-day grounding lines. At certain locations and for certain glaciers, rocks or bedrock have been sampled to provide constraints on the timing of when ice retreated from these locations. In the locations where geochronological data are available we can use these data as direct constraints on ice-flow models that simulate ice elevation change over time. The intellectual merit of this work is using ice-flow models to spatially and temporally extrapolate between these limited geochronological data points, which enables new understanding of glacier evolution. \r\n\r\nThe mountainous topography in this region is complex, and there are limited measurements of the topography beneath the ice of the Transantarctic outlet glaciers. Since the topography of the glacier bed is an important control on ice flow and is a necessary boundary condition in models we developed a new gridded bed product at Beardmore Glacier, the one location where sufficient data were available, and we compared this to continent-scale gridded bed products. We found that for this glacier, the BedMachine v1 product was reasonably similar to the Beardmore Glacier bed topography measurements; our limited evaluation suggests that the BedMachine product may be sufficient at other Transantarctic outlets where bed measurements are not available, but that other compilations of bed topography data that do not include information about ice flow directions do not provide reliable results. Using these data and available geochronological constraints we investigated Beardmore Glacier evolution since the Last Glacial Maximum using simplified (flowline) models of ice flow.\r\n\r\nIn addition to flowline modeling at Beardmore Glacier, we developed a flow-model setup using the open-source \u0027icepack\u0027 model that uses the shallow stream equations and resolves flow in both the x and y directions. The key value added over flowline (or parameterized flowband) models is that this can capture converging and diverging ice flow, variable side wall and bottom drag, and other geometric complexities. In these simulations we can evaluate the past accumulation, ice influx, and ice outflux to compare controls on deglaciation to data constraints on the chronology of deglaciation.\r\n\r\nWe also used a flowline model to investigate the Darwin-Hatherton Glacier System. Exposure ages and radiocarbon ages of glacial deposits at four locations alongside Hatherton and Darwin glaciers record several hundred meters of late Pleistocene to early Holocene thickening relative to present. Deglaciation was relatively complex at this site, and we also found that Byrd glacier likely contributed ice to the catchment of the Darwin-Hatherton glacier system during the last glacial maximum, and that subsequent convergent flow from Byrd and Mulock glaciers during deglaciation complicated the response of the Darwin-Hatherton system. These new insights can be used on their own to better understand local deglaciation, and can also be used to evaluate regional or continent-scale model calculations.\r\n\r\nSeparately, we investigated the general response of outlet glaciers to different sources of climate forcing. We found that outlet glaciers have a characteristically different response over time to surface-mass-balance forcing applied over the interior than to oceanic forcing applied at the grounding line. Our models demonstrated that ocean forcing first engages the fast, local response and then the slow adjustment of interior ice, whereas surface-mass-balance forcing is dominated by the slow interior adjustment. These insights contributed to our general understanding of how outlet glaciers may have evolved over time.\r\n\r\nOur new model investigations provide a framework that can be applied at other Transantarctic outlet glaciers where geochronological data are available. In particular, our \u0027icepack\u0027 setup is an archived and documented resource for the community. These tools are available for future investigations, including additional investigations at Beardmore Glacier and at other Transantarctic Mountain outlet glaciers. Scientific broader impacts include that this contributes to our understanding of the past behavior of East Antarctic ice, which provides an important constraint on the future evolution of Antarctica. Our team has engaged in public outreach and has engaged students in this research. Two graduate students led in aspects of this work, and have since gone on to research positions after their PhD.", "east": -175.0, "geometry": "POINT(170 -81.5)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "GLACIERS; Transantarctic Mountains; GLACIER THICKNESS/ICE SHEET THICKNESS", "locations": "Transantarctic Mountains", "north": -77.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Koutnik, Michelle; Smith, Ben; Conway, Howard; Shapero, Daniel", "platforms": null, "repo": "GitHub", "repositories": "GitHub", "science_programs": null, "south": -86.0, "title": "Holocene Deglaciation of the Western Ross Embayment: Constraints from East Antarctic Outlet Glaciers", "uid": "p0010398", "west": 155.0}, {"awards": "1917176 Siddoway, Christine; 1917009 Thomson, Stuart; 1916982 Teyssier, Christian", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-160.16 -67.15,-154.572 -67.15,-148.984 -67.15,-143.39600000000002 -67.15,-137.808 -67.15,-132.22 -67.15,-126.632 -67.15,-121.04400000000001 -67.15,-115.456 -67.15,-109.868 -67.15,-104.28 -67.15,-104.28 -68.165,-104.28 -69.18,-104.28 -70.19500000000001,-104.28 -71.21000000000001,-104.28 -72.225,-104.28 -73.24,-104.28 -74.255,-104.28 -75.27,-104.28 -76.285,-104.28 -77.3,-109.868 -77.3,-115.456 -77.3,-121.044 -77.3,-126.632 -77.3,-132.22 -77.3,-137.808 -77.3,-143.396 -77.3,-148.98399999999998 -77.3,-154.572 -77.3,-160.16 -77.3,-160.16 -76.285,-160.16 -75.27,-160.16 -74.255,-160.16 -73.24,-160.16 -72.225,-160.16 -71.21000000000001,-160.16 -70.19500000000001,-160.16 -69.18,-160.16 -68.165,-160.16 -67.15))", "dataset_titles": "Apatite fission track thermochronology data for detrital minerals, offshore clasts, and bedrock; U-Pb detrital zircon geochronological data, obtained by LA-ICP-MS", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "200333", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "in progress", "science_program": null, "title": "Apatite fission track thermochronology data for detrital minerals, offshore clasts, and bedrock", "url": ""}, {"dataset_uid": "200332", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "in progress", "science_program": null, "title": "U-Pb detrital zircon geochronological data, obtained by LA-ICP-MS", "url": ""}], "date_created": "Wed, 19 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Sediment records off the coast of Marie Byrd Land (MBL), Antarctica suggest frequent and dramatic changes in the size of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) over short (tens of thousands of years) and long (millions of years) time frames in the past. WAIS currently overrides much of MBL and covers the rugged and scoured bedrock landscape. The ice sheet carved narrow linear troughs that reach depths of two to three thousand meters below sea level as outlet glaciers flowed from the interior of the continent to the oceans. As a result, large volumes of fragmented continental bedrock were carried out to the seabed. The glaciers cut downward into a region of crystalline rocks (i.e. granite) that display a significant temperature change as a function of rock depth. The strong geothermal gradient in the bedrock is favorable for determining when the bedrock became exhumed, or \"uncovered\" by action of the overriding icesheet or other processes. Our approach takes advantage of a reference horizon, or paleogeotherm, established when high-T mineral thermochronometers across Marie Byrd Land (MBL) cooled from temperatures of \u003e800\u00b0 C to 300\u00b0 C, due to rapid regional extension at ~100 Ma . The event imparted a signature through which the subsequent Cenozoic landscape history can be explored: MBL\u0027s elevated geothermal gradient, sustained during the Cenozoic, created favorable conditions for sensitive apatite and zircon low-T thermochronometers to record bedrock cooling related to glacial incision. \r\n\r\nAnalyzing the chemistry of minerals (zircon and apatite) within fragments of eroded rock will reveal the rate and timing of the bedrock erosion and development of topography in West Antarctica. This collaborative project addresses the following questions: When did the land become high enough for a large ice sheet to form? What was the regional pre-glacial topography? Under what climate conditions, and at what point in the growth of an ice sheet, did glaciers begin to cut sharply into bedrock to form the narrow troughs that flow seaward? The research will lead to greater understanding of past Antarctic ice sheet fluctuations and identify precise timing of glacial incisionm which will clarify the onset of WAIS glacier incision and assess the evolution of Cenozoic paleo-topography. The collaborative project provides training for one graduate and 8 undergraduate students in STEM. These students, together with PIs, will refine West Antarctic ice sheet history and obtain results that pertain to the international societal response to contemporary ice sheet change and its global consequences. \r\n\r\nThe methods used for the research include: \r\n\u2022Low-temperature (T) thermochronology and Pecube 3-D thermo-kinematic modeling, applied to the timing and characterizatio episodes of glacial erosional incision. \r\n\u2022Single-grain double- and triple-dating of zircon and apatite, to determine the detailed crustal thermal evolution of the region, enabling the research team to identify the comparative topographic influences on glaciation versus bedrock uplift induced by Eocene to present tectonism/magmatism. \r\n\r\nStudents and PIs employed state-of-the-art analytical facilities in Arizona and Minnesota, expanding the geo- and thermochronologic history of MBL from bedrock samples and offshore sedimentary deposits. The temperature and time data we acquired will provide constraints on paleotopography, isostasy, and the thermal evolution of MBL that will be modeled in 3D using Pecube model simulations. Within hot crust, less incision is required to expose bedrock containing the distinct thermochronometric profile; a prediction we are testing through use of inverse Pecube 3-D models of the thermal field through which bedrock and detrital samples cooled. Using results from Pecube, the ICI-Hot team will examine time-varying topography formed in response to changes in erosion rates, topographic relief, geothermal gradient and/or flexural isostatic rigidity. These effects are manifestations of dynamic processes in the WAIS, including ice sheet loading, ice volume fluctuations, relative motion upon crustal faults, and magmatism-related elevation increase across the MBL dome. The project makes use of pre-existing sample collections housed at the US Polar Rock Repository, IODP\u0027s Gulf Coast Core Repository, and the OSU Marine and Geology Repository. 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": -104.28, "geometry": "POINT(-132.22 -72.225)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Marie Byrd Land; GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS; Zircon; Subglacial Topography; FIELD SURVEYS; TECTONICS; Ice Sheet; Thermochronology; Apatite; ROCKS/MINERALS/CRYSTALS; Erosion; United States Of America; LABORATORY", "locations": "United States Of America; Marie Byrd Land", "north": -67.15, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences; Antarctic Earth Sciences; Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": "PHANEROZOIC", "persons": "Siddoway, Christine; Thomson, Stuart; Teyssier, Christian", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS; OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repo": "in progress", "repositories": "in progress", "science_programs": null, "south": -77.3, "title": "Collaborative Research: Ice sheet erosional interaction with hot geotherm in West Antarctica", "uid": "p0010386", "west": -160.16}, {"awards": "1543530 van der Veen, Cornelis; 1543533 Johnson, Jesse", "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": "Wed, 19 Oct 2022 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Van der Veen/1543530\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThe objective of this research is to gain better understanding of the West Antarctic ice flow in the transition region from grounded ice to floating ice shelves and investigate the conditions that can initiate and sustain major retreat of these glaciers. Several major Antarctic outlet glaciers and ice streams will be investigated using a suite of observational techniques and modeling tools. Glaciers include Thwaites Glacier, which has become a focal point in the discussion of West Antarctic retreat, Whillans Ice Stream as an example of the archetype ice stream, and Byrd Glacier, a major outlet glacier draining East Antarctica through the Transantarctic Mountains into the Ross Ice Shelf. This study will investigate whether the ongoing changes in these glaciers will lead to long-term mass loss (the onset of ice sheet collapse), or whether these glaciers will quickly stabilize with a new geometry. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eTo adequately incorporate the dynamic behavior of outlet glaciers and ice streams requires inclusion of the relevant physical processes, and the development of regional models that employ a numerical grid with a horizontal grid spacing sufficiently refined to capture smaller-scale bed topographic features that may control the flow of these glaciers. This award revisits the issue of stability of marine-terminating glaciers whose grounding line is located on a retrograded bed slope. In particular, an attempt will be made to resolve the question whether observed rapid changes are the result of perturbations at the terminus or grounding line, or whether these changes reflect ice-dynamical forcing over the grounded reaches. High-resolution satellite imagery will be used to investigate ice-flow perturbations on smaller spatial scales than has been done before, to evaluate the importance of localized sites of high basal resistance on grounding-line stability. This collaborative project involves a range of modeling strategies including force-budget analysis, flow-band modeling, Full Stokes modeling for local studies, and using the Ice Sheet System Model developed at JPL for regional modeling. Broader Impacts include training two graduate students in computer simulations and ice sheet modeling algorithms. The work will also expand on a web-based interactive flowline model, so that it includes more realistic grounding line dynamics.", "east": 180.0, "geometry": "POINT(0 -89.999)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Ice Sheet Dynamics; MODELS; Iceberg Calving; GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS; Numerical Glacier Modeling; Basal Sliding; Antarctica", "locations": "Antarctica", "north": -60.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "van der Veen, Cornelis; Stearns, Leigh; Paden, John", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e MODELS", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -90.0, "title": "Collaborative Research: Stability and Dynamics of Antarctic Marine Outlet Glaciers", "uid": "p0010387", "west": -180.0}, {"awards": "2138556 Halberstadt, Anna Ruth", "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": "Tue, 09 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This project combines numerical simulations and geologic data to explore fundamental knowledge gaps regarding the interpretation and use of marine and terrestrial datasets. This work will produce an ensemble of continent-wide coupled ice sheet and glacial isostatic adjustment simulations, constrained with comprehensive existing geologic data, to reproduce a history of deglacial Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution that is compatible with the geologic record as well as glaciologically and gravitationally self-consistent. Comparison between simulations and data is improved through high-resolution nested ice sheet modeling techniques, which provide unprecedented context for exposure age data generally located in regions of complex topography. Numerical simulations will be performed with systematically varied parameters and boundary conditions, and can thus support an investigation of (1) chronological mismatches between terrestrial thinning and marine ice sheet retreat during the mid-Holocene, and (2) how marine grounding-line dynamics are propagated upstream to coastal outlet glaciers and further interior under a variety of different scenarios.", "east": 180.0, "geometry": "POINT(0 -89.999)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Antarctic Ice Sheet; GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS; USAP-DC; USA/NSF; MODELS; AMD; Amd/Us", "locations": "Antarctic Ice Sheet", "north": -60.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Post Doc/Travel", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Halberstadt, Anna Ruth", "platforms": "OTHER \u003e MODELS \u003e MODELS", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -90.0, "title": "OPP-PRF: High-resolution Nested Antarctic Ice Sheet Modeling to Reconcile Marine and Terrestrial Geologic Data", "uid": "p0010278", "west": -180.0}, {"awards": "1542885 Dunham, Eric", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Earthquake Sequence Dynamics at the Interface Between an Elastic Layer and Underlying Half-Space in Antiplane Shear", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601320", "doi": "10.15784/601320", "keywords": "Antarctica; Computer Model; Glaciology; Model Data; Shear Stress; Solid Earth; Whillans Ice Stream", "people": "Abrahams, Lauren", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Earthquake Sequence Dynamics at the Interface Between an Elastic Layer and Underlying Half-Space in Antiplane Shear", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601320"}], "date_created": "Fri, 09 Oct 2020 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This project investigates a rapidly moving section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet known as the Whillans Ice Stream. Ice streams and outlet glaciers are the major pathways for ice discharge from ice sheets into the ocean. Consequently, understanding ice stream dynamics, specifically the processes controlling the frictional resistance of ice sliding on sediments at its base, is essential for predictive modeling of how Earth\u0027s ice sheets will respond to a changing climate. Rather than flowing smoothly, Whillans Ice Stream advances in stick-slip cycles: brief periods of rapid sliding, equivalent to magnitude 7 earthquakes, alternating with much longer periods of repose. The PIs will perform simulations of these stick-slip cycles using computer codes originally developed for modeling tectonic earthquakes. By matching observed ice motions, the PIs will constrain the range of frictional processes acting at the base of the ice stream. An additional focus of the project is on brittle fracture processes in ice, expressed through seismic waves radiated by faulting and/or crevassing episodes that accompany the large-scale sliding events. An understanding of ice fracture provides a basis for assessing the susceptibility of ice shelves to rifting and catastrophic disintegration. Project results will be incorporated into outreach activities (from elementary school to community college events) as well as a polar science class for the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS) program for high school students.\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eSimulations of the stick-slip cycle will employ 3D dynamic rupture models that simultaneously solve for the seismic wavefield and rupture process, consistent with elastodynamic material response and friction laws on the ice stream bed. Stresses and frictional properties will be varied to achieve consistency with surface GPS and broadband seismic data as well as borehole seismograms from the WISSARD project. The results will be interpreted using laboratory till friction experiments, which link velocity-weakening/strengthening behavior to temperature and water content, and to related experiments quantifying basal drag from ice flow over rough beds. The source mechanism of seismicity accompanying the slip events (shear faulting versus crevassing) will be determined using 3D waveform modeling in conjunction with mechanical models of the seismic source processes. This proposal does not require fieldwork in the Antarctic.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e MAGNETIC/MOTION SENSORS \u003e SEISMOMETERS \u003e SEISMOGRAPHS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "SEISMIC PROFILE; AMD; Antarctica; GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS; USA/NSF; USAP-DC; Amd/Us", "locations": "Antarctica", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Dunham, Eric", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e GROUND-BASED OBSERVATIONS", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Collaborative Research: Characterizing Brittle Failure and Fracture Propagation in Fast Ice Sliding with Dynamic Rupture Models based on Whillans Ice Stream Seismic/Geodetic Data", "uid": "p0010138", "west": null}, {"awards": "9615282 Siddoway, Christine; 9615281 Luyendyk, Bruce", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-170 -76,-166.5 -76,-163 -76,-159.5 -76,-156 -76,-152.5 -76,-149 -76,-145.5 -76,-142 -76,-138.5 -76,-135 -76,-135 -76.8,-135 -77.6,-135 -78.4,-135 -79.2,-135 -80,-135 -80.8,-135 -81.6,-135 -82.4,-135 -83.2,-135 -84,-138.5 -84,-142 -84,-145.5 -84,-149 -84,-152.5 -84,-156 -84,-159.5 -84,-163 -84,-166.5 -84,-170 -84,-170 -83.2,-170 -82.4,-170 -81.6,-170 -80.8,-170 -80,-170 -79.2,-170 -78.4,-170 -77.6,-170 -76.8,-170 -76))", "dataset_titles": "Bedrock sample data, Ford Ranges region (Marie Byrd Land); SOAR-WMB Airborne gravity data", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601829", "doi": "10.15784/601829", "keywords": "Antarctica; Cryosphere; Gondwana; Marie Byrd Land; Migmatite", "people": "Siddoway, Christine", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Bedrock sample data, Ford Ranges region (Marie Byrd Land)", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601829"}, {"dataset_uid": "601294", "doi": "10.15784/601294", "keywords": "Aerogeophysics; Airborne Gravity; Airplane; Antarctica; Free Air Gravity; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Gravimeter; Gravity; Gravity Data; Marie Byrd Land; Potential Field; Ross Sea; Solid Earth", "people": "Bell, Robin", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "SOAR-WMB Airborne gravity data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601294"}], "date_created": "Fri, 24 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award supports a collaborative project that combines air and ground geological-geophysical investigations to understand the tectonic and geological development of the boundary between the Ross Sea Rift and the Marie Byrd Land (MBL) volcanic province. The project will determine the Cenozoic tectonic history of the region and whether Neogene structures that localized outlet glacier flow developed within the context of Cenozoic rifting on the eastern Ross Embayment margin, or within the volcanic province in MBL. The geological structure at the boundary between the Ross Embayment and western MBL may be a result of: 1) Cenozoic extension on the eastern shoulder of the Ross Sea rift; 2) uplift and crustal extension related to Neogene mantle plume activity in western MBL; or a combination of the two. Faulting and volcanism, mountain uplift, and glacier downcutting appear to now be active in western MBL, where generally East-to-West-flowing outlet glaciers incise Paleozoic and Mesozoic bedrock, and deglaciated summits indicate a previous North-South glacial flow direction. This study requires data collection using SOAR (Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research, a facility supported by Office of Polar Programs which utilizes high precision differential GPS to support a laser altimeter, ice-penetrating radar, a towed proton magnetometer, and a Bell BGM-3 gravimeter). This survey requires data for 37,000 square kilometers using 5.3 kilometer line spacing with 15.6 kilometer tie lines, and 86,000 square kilometers using a grid of 10.6 by 10.6 kilometer spacing. Data will be acquired over several key features in the region including, among other, the eastern edge of the Ross Sea rift, over ice stream OEO, the transition from the Edward VII Peninsula plateau to the Ford Ranges, the continuation to the east of a gravity high known from previous reconnaissance mapping over the Fosdick Metamorphic Complex, an d the extent of the high-amplitude magnetic anomalies (volcanic centers?) detected southeast of the northern Ford Ranges by other investigators. SOAR products will include glaciology data useful for studying driving stresses, glacial flow and mass balance in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The ground program is centered on the southern Ford Ranges. Geologic field mapping will focus on small scale brittle structures for regional kinematic interpretation, on glaciated surfaces and deposits, and on datable volcanic rocks for geochronologic control. The relative significance of fault and joint sets, the timing relationships between them, and the probable context of their formation will also be determined. Exposure ages will be determined for erosion surfaces and moraines. Interpretation of potential field data will be aided by on ground sampling for magnetic properties and density as well as ground based gravity measurements. Oriented samples will be taken for paleomagnetic studies. Combined airborne and ground investigations will obtain basic data for describing the geology and structure at the eastern boundary of the Ross Embayment both in outcrop and ice covered areas, and may be used to distinguish between Ross Sea rift- related structural activity from uplift and faulting on the perimeter of the MBL dome and volcanic province. Outcrop geology and structure will be extrapolated with the aerogeophysical data to infer the geology that resides beneath the WAIS. The new knowledge of Neogene tectonics in western MBL will contribute to a comprehensive model for the Cenozoic Ross rift and to understanding of the extent of plume activity in MBL. Both are important for determining the influence of Neogene tectonics on the ice streams and WAIS.", "east": -135.0, "geometry": "POINT(-152.5 -80)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e MAGNETIC/MOTION SENSORS \u003e GRAVIMETERS \u003e LGS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "GRAVITY; USAP-DC; Ross Sea; TECTONICS; Marie Byrd Land", "locations": "Ross Sea; Marie Byrd Land", "north": -76.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences; Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Luyendyk, Bruce P.; Siddoway, Christine", "platforms": null, "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -84.0, "title": "Air-Ground Study of Tectonics at the Boundary Between the Eastern Ross Embayment and Western Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica: Basement Geology and Structure", "uid": "p0010096", "west": -170.0}, {"awards": "1141866 Conway, Howard; 1141889 Winberry, J. Paul", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Beardmore Glacier High-Frequency Impulse Radar Data; Geophysical measurements Beardmore Glacier, Antarctica; Project code ZF for passive seismic and 17-030 for active source", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601713", "doi": "10.15784/601713", "keywords": "Antarctica; Beardmore Glacier; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; GPR; Ice Penetrating Radar; Snow/ice; Snow/Ice", "people": "Christianson, Knut; Conway, Howard; Hoffman, Andrew", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Beardmore Glacier High-Frequency Impulse Radar Data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601713"}, {"dataset_uid": "601121", "doi": "10.15784/601121", "keywords": "Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ice Thickness; Radar", "people": "Conway, Howard", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Geophysical measurements Beardmore Glacier, Antarctica", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601121"}, {"dataset_uid": "000210", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "IRIS", "science_program": null, "title": "Project code ZF for passive seismic and 17-030 for active source", "url": "https://ds.iris.edu/mda/17-030"}], "date_created": "Sun, 09 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Conway/1141866\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis award supports a project to conduct a suite of experiments to study spatial and temporal variations of basal conditions beneath Beardmore Glacier, an East Antarctic outlet glacier that discharges into the Ross Sea Embayment. The intellectual merit of the project is that it should help verify whether or not global warming will play a much larger role in the future mass balance of ice sheets than previously considered. Recent observations of rapid changes in discharge of fast-flowing outlet glaciers and ice streams suggest that dynamical responses to warming could affect that ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Assessment of possible consequences of these responses is hampered by the lack of information about the basal boundary conditions. The leading hypothesis is that variations in basal conditions exert strong control on the discharge of outlet glaciers. Airborne and surface-based radar measurements of Beardmore Glacier will be made to map the ice thickness and geometry of the sub-glacial trough and active and passive seismic experiments, together with ground-based radar and GPS measurements will be made to map spatial and temporal variations of conditions at the ice-bed interface. The observational data will be used to constrain dynamic models of glacier flow. The models will be used to address the primary controls on the dynamics of Antarctic outlet glaciers, the conditions at the bed, their spatial and temporal variation, and how such variability might affect the sliding and flow of these glaciers. The work will also explore whether or not these outlet glaciers could draw down the interior of East Antarctica, and if so, how fast. The study will take three years including two field seasons to complete and results from the work will be disseminated through public and professional meetings and journal publications. All data and metadata will be made available through the NSIDC web portal. The broader impacts of the work are that it will help elucidate the fundamental physics of outlet glacier dynamics which is needed to improve predictions of the response of ice sheets to changing environmental conditions. The project will also provide support for early career investigators and will provide training and support for one graduate and two undergraduate students. All collaborators are currently involved in scientific outreach and graduate student education and they are committed to fostering diversity.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "NOT APPLICABLE; USAP-DC; Not provided", "locations": null, "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Conway, Howard; Winberry, Paul", "platforms": "Not provided; OTHER \u003e NOT APPLICABLE \u003e NOT APPLICABLE", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "IRIS; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Collaborative Research: East Antarctic Outlet Glacier Dynamics", "uid": "p0000437", "west": null}, {"awards": "1043481 Creyts, Timothy", "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": "Fri, 17 Jun 2016 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "1043481/Creyts\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis award supports a project to develop models of subglacial hydrology in order to understand dynamics of water movement, lake drainage, and how drainage affects ice slip over deformable till with the goal of understanding present and future behavior of fast flowing regions of Antarctica. Drainage of subglacial water falls into two broad categories: distributed and channelized. In distributed systems, water is forced out along the ice?bed interface. Conversely, in channelized systems water is drawn toward a few major arteries. Observations of lake filling and draining sup- port changes in subglacial water flow and suggest a switch from a low to high discharge state or vice versa. Filling or draining can move the subglacial system from one type of drainage morphology to the other. A switch of drainage type will affect slip along the ice-bed interface because distributed morphologies tend to cause enhanced sliding whereas channelized morphologies tend to cause enhanced coupling of the ice-bed interface. Conditions beneath fast flowing ice streams of West Antarctica are ideal for switching between subglacial drainage morphologies. Fast flowing ice in West Antarctica commonly rests on sub- glacial tills and is coincident, in some areas, with observed subglacial lake filling and draining. The goal of the work is to develop the next generation of spatially distributed hydraulic models that capture lake filling and draining phenomena and investigate the effects on subglacial till. Models will be theoretical, process-based descriptions of water drainage and till failure along fast flowing ice streams. Models will be based on balance of mass, momentum, and energy. Building on previous studies, we will incorporate two dimensional movement of water to investigate distributed basal hydrology, distributed basal hydrology coupled to channels, and couple these models with till deformation. These models will provide a framework for determining how lake draining and filling affects ice discharge by providing a constraints on ice?bed coupling. The intellectual merit of the work is that it will advance knowledge about drainage of water subglacially beneath Antarctica and how water affects ice motion. Our modeling provides a unique opportunity to understand the role subglacial hydrology plays in the dynamics of key outlet glaciers and ice streams. The broader impacts of the work include training for one postdoctoral scientist and training for a summer student in simple laboratory techniques for analog experiments. In addition, the proposal dovetails into an existing polar education and outreach plan by including a component of physical, numerical, and scale models in programs developed for high school and middle school classroom visits, teacher workshops and community events. Additionally, because knowledge of glacial hydrology is increasing rapidly, we will convene a workshop on observations and models of subglacial hydrology to facilitate transfer of knowledge and ideas.", "east": 180.0, "geometry": "POINT(0 -89.999)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": -60.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Creyts, Timothy; Bell, Robin", "platforms": "Not provided", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -90.0, "title": "Subglacial drainage and slip modeling in Antarctica: relating lakes to ice discharge", "uid": "p0000345", "west": -180.0}, {"awards": "0944645 Goodge, John", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Intellectual Merit: \u003cbr/\u003eBecause of extensive ice cover and sparse remote-sensing data, the geology of the Precambrian East Antarctic Shield (EAS) remains largely unexplored with information limited to coastal outcrops from the African, Indian and Australian sectors. The East Antarctic lithosphere is globally important: as one of the largest coherent Precambrian shields, including rocks as old as ~3.8 Ga, it played an important role in global crustal growth; it is a key piece in assembly of the Rodinia and Gondwana supercontinents; it is the substrate to Earth?s major ice cap, including numerous sub-glacial lakes, and influences its thermal state and mechanical stability; and its geotectonic association with formerly adjacent continental blocks in South Africa, India and Australia suggest that it might harbor important mineral resources. This project will increase understanding of the age and composition of the western EAS lithosphere underlying and adjacent to the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) using U-Pb ages, and Hf- and O-isotope analysis of zircon in early Paleozoic granitoids and Pleistocene glacial tills. TAM granites of the early Paleozoic Ross Orogen represent an areally extensive continental-margin arc suite that can provide direct information about the EAS crust from which it melted and/or through which it passed. Large rock clasts of igneous and metamorphic lithologies entrained in glacial tills at the head of major outlet glaciers traversing the TAM provide eroded samples of the proximal EAS basement. Zircons in these materials will provide data about age and inheritance (U-Pb), crustal vs. mantle origin (O isotopes), and crustal sources and evolution (Hf isotopes). Integrated along a significant part of the TAM, these data will help define broader crustal provinces that can be correlated with geophysical data and used to test models of crustal assembly. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eBroader impacts: \u003cbr/\u003eThis project will provide a research opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students. Undergraduates will be involved as Research Assistants in sample preparation, imaging, and analytical procedures, and conducting their own independent research. The two main elements of this project will form the basis of MS thesis projects for two graduate students at UMD. Through this project they will gain a good understanding of petrology, isotope geochemistry, and analytical methods. The broader scientific impacts of this work are that it will help develop a better understanding of the origin and evolution of East Antarctic lithosphere underlying and adjacent to the TAM, which will be of value to the broader earth science and glaciological community. Furthermore, knowledge of East Antarctic geology is of continuing interest to the general public because of strong curiosity about past supercontinents, what?s under the ice, and the impact of global warming on ice-sheet stability.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "Transantarctic Mountains; Not provided", "locations": "Transantarctic Mountains", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Goodge, John", "platforms": "Not provided", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Age and Composition of the East Antarctic Shield by Isotopic Analysis of Granite and Glacial Till", "uid": "p0000258", "west": null}, {"awards": "0944087 Hamilton, Gordon", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((145 -80,147 -80,149 -80,151 -80,153 -80,155 -80,157 -80,159 -80,161 -80,163 -80,165 -80,165 -80.035,165 -80.07,165 -80.105,165 -80.14,165 -80.175,165 -80.21,165 -80.245,165 -80.28,165 -80.315,165 -80.35,163 -80.35,161 -80.35,159 -80.35,157 -80.35,155 -80.35,153 -80.35,151 -80.35,149 -80.35,147 -80.35,145 -80.35,145 -80.315,145 -80.28,145 -80.245,145 -80.21,145 -80.175,145 -80.14,145 -80.105,145 -80.07,145 -80.035,145 -80))", "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Fri, 23 Jan 2015 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award supports a project to understand the flow dynamics of large, fast-moving outlet glaciers that drain the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The project includes an integrated field, remote sensing and modeling study of Byrd Glacier which is a major pathway for the discharge of mass from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) to the ocean. Recent work has shown that the glacier can undergo short-lived but significant changes in flow speed in response to perturbations in its boundary conditions. Because outlet glacier speeds exert a major control on ice sheet mass balance and modulate the ice sheet contribution to sea level rise, it is essential that their sensitivity to a range of dynamic processes is properly understood and incorporated into prognostic ice sheet models. The intellectual merit of the project is that the results from this study will provide critically important information regarding the flow dynamics of large EAIS outlet glaciers. The proposed study is designed to address variations in glacier behavior on timescales of minutes to years. A dense network of global positioning satellite (GPS) instruments on the grounded trunk and floating portions of the glacier will provide continuous, high-resolution time series of horizontal and vertical motions over a 26-month period. These results will be placed in the context of a longer record of remote sensing observations covering a larger spatial extent, and the combined datasets will be used to constrain a numerical model of the glacier\u0027s flow dynamics. The broader impacts of the work are that this project will generate results which are likely to be a significant component of next-generation ice sheet models seeking to predict the evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and future rates of sea level rise. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights the imperfect understanding of outlet glacier dynamics as a major obstacle to the production of an accurate sea level rise projections. This project will provide significant research opportunities for several early-career scientists, including the lead PI for this proposal (she is both a new investigator and a junior faculty member at a large research university) and two PhD-level graduate students. The students will be trained in glaciology, geodesy and numerical modeling, contributing to society\u0027s need for experts in those fields. In addition, this project will strengthen international collaboration between polar scientists and geodesists in the US and Spain. The research team will work closely with science educators in the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) outreach program to disseminate project results to non-specialist audiences.", "east": 165.0, "geometry": "POINT(155 -80.175)", "instruments": "EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS RECEIVERS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "Sea Level Rise; FIELD INVESTIGATION; Glacier; LABORATORY; Outlet Glaciers; Boundary Conditions; Model; Numerical Model; FIELD SURVEYS; Antarctica; COMPUTERS; Not provided; Flow Dynamics", "locations": "Antarctica", "north": -80.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Stearns, Leigh; Hamilton, Gordon S.", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS; Not provided; OTHER \u003e MODELS \u003e COMPUTERS; OTHER \u003e PHYSICAL MODELS \u003e LABORATORY", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -80.35, "title": "Collaborative Research: Byrd Glacier Flow Dynamics", "uid": "p0000319", "west": 145.0}, {"awards": "0944475 Kaplan, Michael", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-149.7 -84.1,-118.61 -84.1,-87.52 -84.1,-56.43 -84.1,-25.34 -84.1,5.75 -84.1,36.84 -84.1,67.93 -84.1,99.02 -84.1,130.11 -84.1,161.2 -84.1,161.2 -84.43,161.2 -84.76,161.2 -85.09,161.2 -85.42,161.2 -85.75,161.2 -86.08,161.2 -86.41,161.2 -86.74,161.2 -87.07,161.2 -87.4,130.11 -87.4,99.02 -87.4,67.93 -87.4,36.84 -87.4,5.75 -87.4,-25.34 -87.4,-56.43 -87.4,-87.52 -87.4,-118.61 -87.4,-149.7 -87.4,-149.7 -87.07,-149.7 -86.74,-149.7 -86.41,-149.7 -86.08,-149.7 -85.75,-149.7 -85.42,-149.7 -85.09,-149.7 -84.76,-149.7 -84.43,-149.7 -84.1))", "dataset_titles": "Pleistocene East Antarctic Ice Sheet History as Recorded in Sediment Provenance and Chronology of High-elevation TAM Moraines", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "600115", "doi": "10.15784/600115", "keywords": "Antarctica; Cosmogenic Dating; Sample/collection Description; Sample/Collection Description; Solid Earth; Transantarctic Mountains", "people": "Kaplan, Michael", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Pleistocene East Antarctic Ice Sheet History as Recorded in Sediment Provenance and Chronology of High-elevation TAM Moraines", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/600115"}], "date_created": "Thu, 17 Jul 2014 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "The proposed work will investigate changes in the compositional variation of glacial tills over time across two concentric sequences of Pleistocene moraines located adjacent to the heads of East Antarctic outlet glaciers in the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM). The chronologic framework for this work will be generated from cosmogenic exposure ages of boulders on prominent morainal ridges. The PIs hypothesize that variations in till composition may indicate a change in ice flow direction or a change in the composition of the original source area, while ages of the moraines provide a long-term terrestrial perspective on ice sheet dynamics. Both results are vital for modeling experiments that aim to reconstruct the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and assess its role in the global climate system and its potential impact on global sea level rise. The variation of till compositions through time also allows for a more accurate interpretation of sediment cores from the Ross Sea and the Southern Ocean. Additionally, till exposures at the head of some East Antarctic outlet glaciers have been shown to contain subglacial material derived from East Antarctic bedrock, providing a window through the ice to view East Antarctica?s inaccessible bedrock. Till samples will be collected from two well-preserved sequences of moraine crests at Mt. Howe (head of Scott Glacier) and Mt. Achernar (between Beardmore and Nimrod Glaciers). Each size fraction in glacial till provides potentially valuable information, and the PIs will measure the petrography of the clast and sand fractions, quantitative X-ray diffraction on the crushed \u003c2mm fraction, elemental abundance of the silt/clay fraction, and U/Pb of detrital zircons in the sand fraction. Data collection will rely on established methods previously used in this region and the PIs will also explore new methods to assess their efficacy. On the same moraines crests sampled for provenance studies, the PIs will sample for cosmogenic surface exposure analyses to provide a chronologic framework at the sites for provenance changes through time. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eBroader Impact \u003cbr/\u003eThe proposed research involves graduate and undergraduate training in a diverse array of laboratory methods. Students and PIs will be make presentations to community and campus groups, as well as conduct interviews with local news outlets. The proposed work also establishes a new, potentially long-term, collaboration between scientists at IUPUI and LDEO and brings a new PI (Kaplan) into the field of Antarctic Earth Sciences.", "east": 161.2, "geometry": "POINT(5.75 -85.75)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "FIELD INVESTIGATION", "locations": null, "north": -84.1, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Kaplan, Michael", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -87.4, "title": "Collaborative Research: Pleistocene East Antarctic Ice Sheet History as Recorded in Sediment Provenance and Chronology of High-elevation TAM Moraines", "uid": "p0000459", "west": -149.7}, {"awards": "1043619 Hemming, Sidney; 1043572 Licht, Kathy", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-177.982 -63.997,-149.64107 -63.997,-121.30014 -63.997,-92.95921 -63.997,-64.61828 -63.997,-36.27735 -63.997,-7.93642 -63.997,20.40451 -63.997,48.74544 -63.997,77.08637 -63.997,105.4273 -63.997,105.4273 -66.3324,105.4273 -68.6678,105.4273 -71.0032,105.4273 -73.3386,105.4273 -75.674,105.4273 -78.0094,105.4273 -80.3448,105.4273 -82.6802,105.4273 -85.0156,105.4273 -87.351,77.08637 -87.351,48.74544 -87.351,20.40451 -87.351,-7.93642 -87.351,-36.27735 -87.351,-64.61828 -87.351,-92.95921 -87.351,-121.30014 -87.351,-149.64107 -87.351,-177.982 -87.351,-177.982 -85.0156,-177.982 -82.6802,-177.982 -80.3448,-177.982 -78.0094,-177.982 -75.674,-177.982 -73.3386,-177.982 -71.0032,-177.982 -68.6678,-177.982 -66.3324,-177.982 -63.997))", "dataset_titles": "East Antarctic outlet glacier contributions to the Ross Sea from chronology of detrital grains", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "600124", "doi": "10.15784/600124", "keywords": "Antarctica; East Antarctica; Geochemistry; Ross Sea; Sample/collection Description; Sample/Collection Description; Solid Earth; Southern Ocean; West Antarctica", "people": "Hemming, Sidney R.", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "East Antarctic outlet glacier contributions to the Ross Sea from chronology of detrital grains", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/600124"}], "date_created": "Tue, 18 Feb 2014 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Intellectual Merit: \u003cbr/\u003eThe PIs proposed a provenance study of glacial deposits in the Ross Embayment that will provide a broad scale geochronologic survey of detrital minerals in till to help characterize bedrock beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet and constrain Antarctica?s glacial history. This project capitalizes on previous investments in field sampling. Analytical tools applied to single mineral grains extracted from existing collections of glacial till will generate ?fingerprints? of East Antarctic outlet glaciers and West Antarctic till to refine paleo-ice flow models for the Ross Embayment during the last glacial maximum, older records from ANDRILL cores, and to assess IRD sources in the Southern Ocean. New provenance tracers will include a suite of geochronological methods that together provide greater insights into the orogenic and erosional history the region. This project will include U/Pb of detrital zircons, (U-Th)/He on a subset of the U/Pb dated zircons, as well as Ar-Ar of detrital hornblende, mica and feldspars. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eBroader impacts: \u003cbr/\u003eThis research will train one M.S. student at IUPUI, a Ph.D. student at Columbia, and several undergraduates at both institutions. Graduate students involved in the project will be involved in mentoring undergraduate researchers. Incorporation of research discoveries will be brought into the classroom by providing concrete examples and exercises at the appropriate level. Licht and Columbia graduate student E. Pierce are developing outreach projects with local secondary school teachers to investigate the provenance of glacial materials in their local areas. The research will have broad applicability to many fields.", "east": 105.4273, "geometry": "POINT(-36.27735 -75.674)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e SPECTROMETERS/RADIOMETERS \u003e LA-ICP-MS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e PHOTON/OPTICAL DETECTORS \u003e PETROGRAPHIC MICROSCOPES; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e SPECTROMETERS/RADIOMETERS \u003e ICP-MS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Not provided; FIELD SURVEYS", "locations": null, "north": -63.997, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Earth Sciences; Antarctic Earth Sciences", "paleo_time": "PHANEROZOIC \u003e CENOZOIC \u003e QUATERNARY", "persons": "Licht, Kathy; Hemming, Sidney R.", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS; Not provided", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -87.351, "title": "Collaborative Research: East Antarctic outlet glacier contributions to the Ross Sea from chronology of detrital grains", "uid": "p0000333", "west": -177.982}, {"awards": "0838615 Hall, Brenda", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-177.13 -84.55,-177.074 -84.55,-177.018 -84.55,-176.962 -84.55,-176.906 -84.55,-176.85 -84.55,-176.794 -84.55,-176.738 -84.55,-176.682 -84.55,-176.626 -84.55,-176.57 -84.55,-176.57 -84.615,-176.57 -84.68,-176.57 -84.745,-176.57 -84.81,-176.57 -84.875,-176.57 -84.94,-176.57 -85.005,-176.57 -85.07,-176.57 -85.135,-176.57 -85.2,-176.626 -85.2,-176.682 -85.2,-176.738 -85.2,-176.794 -85.2,-176.85 -85.2,-176.906 -85.2,-176.962 -85.2,-177.018 -85.2,-177.074 -85.2,-177.13 -85.2,-177.13 -85.135,-177.13 -85.07,-177.13 -85.005,-177.13 -84.94,-177.13 -84.875,-177.13 -84.81,-177.13 -84.745,-177.13 -84.68,-177.13 -84.615,-177.13 -84.55))", "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Thu, 05 Sep 2013 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Stone/0838818 \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis award supports a project to study the former thickness and retreat history of Shackleton and Beardmore Glaciers which flow through the Transantarctic Mountains (TAMs) into the southern Ross Sea. Lateral moraine deposits along the lower reaches of these major outlet glaciers will be mapped and dated and the results will help to date the LGM and constrain the thickness of ice where it left the Transantarctic Mountains and flowed into the Ross Sea. The intellectual merit of the project is that the results will allow scientists to distinguish between models of ice retreat, which have important implications for former ice configuration and dynamics, and to constrain the contribution from Ross Sea deglaciation to global sea level through the late Holocene. In addition, this will make a significant contribution to a better understanding of the magnitude and timing of postglacial sea-level change and the potential contribution of Antarctica to sea-level rise in future. The broader impacts of the project are that the work will help quantify changes in grounded ice volume since the LGM, improve understanding of the ice dynamics responsible, and examine their implications for future sea level change. The project will train future scientists through participation of two graduate students and undergraduates who will develop self-contained research projects. As in previous Antarctic projects, there will be interaction with K-12 students through classroom visits, web-based expedition journals, letters from the field, and discussions with teachers and will allow the project to be shared with a wide audience. This award has field work in Antarctica.", "east": -176.57, "geometry": "POINT(-176.85 -84.875)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": -84.55, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Instrumentation and Support", "paleo_time": "PHANEROZOIC \u003e CENOZOIC \u003e QUATERNARY \u003e HOLOCENE", "persons": "Hall, Brenda", "platforms": "Not provided", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -85.2, "title": "Collaborative Research: Constraints on the last Ross Ice Sheet from Glacial Deposits in the Southern Transantarctic Mountains", "uid": "p0000094", "west": -177.13}, {"awards": "0739444 Rice, James", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Rice 0739444\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis award supports a project to study the mode of formation and causes of glacial earthquakes. The paradigm for glacial flow has been that glaciers flow in a viscous manner, with major changes in the force balance occurring on the decade timescale or longer. The recent discovery of a number of even shorter timescale events has challenged this paradigm. In 2003, it was discovered that Whillans Ice Stream in West Antarctica displays stick-slip behavior on the 10-30 minute timescale, with ice stream speed increasing by a factor of 30 from already high speeds. In the past year, the minimum timescale has been pushed shorter by recognition that a class of recently discovered 50-second-long, magnitude-5 earthquakes are closely associated with changes in the force balance near the calving fronts of large outlet glaciers in both Greenland and East Antarctica. With no adequate theory existing to explain these relatively large earthquakes associated with outlet glaciers, we have begun to investigate the physical mechanisms that must be involved in allowing such a response in a system traditionally not thought capable of generating large variations in forces over timescales less than 100 seconds. The intellectual merit of the work is that large-amplitude, short-timescale variability of glaciers is an important mode of glacier dynamics that has not yet been understood from a first-principles physics perspective. The proposed research addresses this gap in understanding, tying together knowledge from numerous disciplines including glaciology, seismology and fault rupture dynamics, laboratory rock physics, granular flow, fracture mechanics, and hydrogeology. The broader impacts of the work are that there is societal as well as general scientific interest in the stability of the major ice sheets. However, without an understanding of the physical processes governing short time scale variability, it is unlikely that we will be able accurately predict the future of these ice sheets and their impact on sea level changes. The project will also contribute to the development and education of young scientists.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "Rapid Glacial Motions; Not provided; Hydrogeology; Fracture Mechanics; Glacier Dynamics; Glacial Earthquakes; Granular Flow; Glacial Underflooding; Glaciology; Ice Stream Margins; Outlet Glaciers", "locations": null, "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Rice, James; Platt, John; Suckale, Jenny; Perol, Thibaut; Tsai, Victor", "platforms": "Not provided", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Transient and Rapid Glacial Motions, including Glacial Earthquakes", "uid": "p0000709", "west": null}, {"awards": "0732946 Steffen, Konrad", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "Larsen C automatic weather station data 2008\u20132011; Mean surface mass balance over Larsen C ice shelf, Antarctica (1979-2014), assimilated to in situ GPR and snow height data", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601445", "doi": "10.15784/601445", "keywords": "Antarctica; Atmosphere; AWS; Foehn Winds; Ice Shelf; Larsen C Ice Shelf; Larsen Ice Shelf; Meteorology; Weather Station Data", "people": "Steffen, Konrad; Bayou, Nicolas; McGrath, Daniel", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Larsen C automatic weather station data 2008\u20132011", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601445"}, {"dataset_uid": "601056", "doi": "10.15784/601056", "keywords": "Antarctica; Antarctic Peninsula; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; GPR; Larsen C Ice Shelf; Radar", "people": "Steffen, Konrad; Kuipers Munneke, Peter; McGrath, Daniel", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Mean surface mass balance over Larsen C ice shelf, Antarctica (1979-2014), assimilated to in situ GPR and snow height data", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601056"}], "date_created": "Wed, 03 Oct 2012 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award supports a field experiment, with partners from Chile and the Netherlands, to determine the state of health and stability of Larsen C ice shelf in response to climate change. Significant glaciological and ecological changes are taking place in the Antarctic Peninsula in response to climate warming that is proceeding at 6 times the global average rate. Following the collapse of Larsen A ice shelf in 1995 and Larsen B in 2002, the outlet glaciers that nourished them with land ice accelerated massively, losing a disproportionate amount of ice to the ocean. Further south, the much larger Larsen C ice shelf is thinning and measurements collected over more than a decade suggest that it is doomed to break up. The intellectual merit of the project will be to contribute to the scientific knowledge of one of the Antarctic sectors where the most significant changes are taking place at present. The project is central to a cluster of International Polar Year activities in the Antarctic Peninsula. It will yield a legacy of international collaboration, instrument networking, education of young scientists, reference data and scientific analysis in a remote but globally relevant glaciological setting. The broader impacts of the project will be to address the contribution to sea level rise from Antarctica and to bring live monitoring of climate and ice dynamics in Antarctica to scientists, students, the non-specialized public, the press and the media via live web broadcasting of progress, data collection, visualization and analysis. Existing data will be combined with new measurements to assess what physical processes are controlling the weakening of the ice shelf, whether a break up is likely, and provide baseline data to quantify the consequences of a breakup. Field activities will include measurements using the Global Positioning System (GPS), installation of automatic weather stations (AWS), ground penetrating radar (GPR) measurements, collection of shallow firn cores and temperature measurements. These data will be used to characterize the dynamic response of the ice shelf to a variety of phenomena (oceanic tides, iceberg calving, ice-front retreat and rifting, time series of weather conditions, structural characteristics of the ice shelf and bottom melting regime, and the ability of firn to collect melt water and subsequently form water ponds that over-deepen and weaken the ice shelf). This effort will complement an analysis of remote sensing data, ice-shelf numerical models and control methods funded independently to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the ice shelf evolution in a changing climate.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e RECORDERS/LOGGERS \u003e AWS; IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e CORING DEVICES; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR SOUNDERS \u003e GPR; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e POSITIONING/NAVIGATION \u003e GPS \u003e GPS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e PASSIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e TEMPERATURE PROFILERS", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "Climate Warming; Firn; COMPUTERS; Ice Dynamic; USAP-DC; Glaciological; Thinning; Sea Level Rise; FIELD SURVEYS; FIELD INVESTIGATION; USA/NSF; AMD; Ice Edge Retreat; LABORATORY; Climate Change; Antarctic Peninsula; Amd/Us; Melting", "locations": "Antarctic Peninsula", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Steffen, Konrad", "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", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "IPY: Stability of Larsen C Ice Shelf in a Warming Climate", "uid": "p0000087", "west": null}, {"awards": "0739769 Fricker, Helen", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-57.22 74.58,-55.343 74.58,-53.466 74.58,-51.589 74.58,-49.712 74.58,-47.835 74.58,-45.958 74.58,-44.081 74.58,-42.204 74.58,-40.327 74.58,-38.45 74.58,-38.45 73.822,-38.45 73.064,-38.45 72.306,-38.45 71.548,-38.45 70.79,-38.45 70.032,-38.45 69.274,-38.45 68.516,-38.45 67.758,-38.45 67,-40.327 67,-42.204 67,-44.081 67,-45.958 67,-47.835 67,-49.712 67,-51.589 67,-53.466 67,-55.343 67,-57.22 67,-57.22 67.758,-57.22 68.516,-57.22 69.274,-57.22 70.032,-57.22 70.79,-57.22 71.548,-57.22 72.306,-57.22 73.064,-57.22 73.822,-57.22 74.58))", "dataset_titles": "Amery Ice Shelf metadata (IRIS); Columbia Glacier metadata (IRIS); Greenland Ice Sheet Seismic Network metadata (IRIS)", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "000101", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "IRIS", "science_program": null, "title": "Columbia Glacier metadata (IRIS)", "url": "http://www.iris.edu/mda/YM?timewindow=2004-2005"}, {"dataset_uid": "000103", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "IRIS", "science_program": null, "title": "Greenland Ice Sheet Seismic Network metadata (IRIS)", "url": "http://www.iris.edu/mda/_GLISN"}, {"dataset_uid": "000100", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "IRIS", "science_program": null, "title": "Amery Ice Shelf metadata (IRIS)", "url": "http://www.iris.edu/mda/X9?timewindow=2004-2007"}], "date_created": "Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award supports a project to strengthen collaborations between the various research groups working on iceberg calving. Relatively little is known about the calving process, especially the physics that governs the initiation and propagation of fractures within the ice. This knowledge gap exists in part because of the diverse range in spatial and temporal scales associated with calving (ranging from less than one meter to over a hundred kilometers in length scale). It is becoming increasingly clear that to predict the future behavior of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and its contribution to sea level rise, it is necessary to improve our understanding of iceberg calving processes. Further challenges stem from difficulties in monitoring and quantifying short-time and spatial-scale processes associated with ice fracture, including increased fracturing events in ice shelves or outlet glaciers that may be a precursor to disintegration, retreat or increased calving rates. Coupled, these fundamental problems currently prohibit the inclusion of iceberg calving into numerical ice sheet models and hinder our ability to accurately forecast changes in sea level in response to climate change. Seismic data from four markedly different environmental regimes forms the basis of the proposed research, and researchers most familiar with the datasets will perform all analyses. Extracting the similarities and differences across the full breadth of calving processes embodies the core of the proposed work, combining and improving methods previously developed by each group. Techniques derived from solid Earth seismology, including waveform cross-correlation and clustering will be applied to each data set allowing quantitative process comparisons on a significantly higher level than previously possible. This project will derive catalogues of glaciologically produced seismic events; the events will then be located and categorized based on their location, waveform and waveform spectra both within individual environments and between regions. The intellectual merit of this work is that it will lead to a better understanding of iceberg calving and the teleconnections between seismic events and other geophysical processes around the globe. The broader impacts of this work are that it relates directly to socio-environmental impacts of global change and sea level rise. Strong collaborations will form as a result of this research, including bolstered collaborations between the glacier and ice sheet communities, as well as the glaciology and seismology communities. Outreach and public dissemination of findings will be driven by SIO\u0027s Visualization Center, and Birch Aquarium, hosting presentations devoted to the role of the cryosphere in global change. Time-lapse movies of recent changes at Columbia Glacier will be used to engage potential young scientists. A program of presentations outside the university setting to at-risk and gifted youth will be continued. This study will also involve undergraduates in analyses and interpretation and presentation of the seismic data assembled. The work will also support two junior scientists who will be supported by this project.", "east": 72.949097, "geometry": "POINT(72.8836975 -69.008701)", "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e MAGNETIC/MOTION SENSORS \u003e SEISMOMETERS \u003e SEISMOMETERS", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "PASSCAL; Not provided; Antarctic; SEISMOLOGICAL STATIONS; Iceberg; Seismology; Calving", "locations": "Antarctic", "north": -68.993301, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Fricker, Helen", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e PASSCAL; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PERMANENT LAND SITES \u003e SEISMOLOGICAL STATIONS; Not provided", "repo": "IRIS", "repositories": "IRIS", "science_programs": null, "south": -69.024101, "title": "An Investigation into the Seismic Signatures Generated by Iceberg Calving and Rifting", "uid": "p0000683", "west": 72.818298}, {"awards": "0636818 Stone, John", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-157 -85,-156 -85,-155 -85,-154 -85,-153 -85,-152 -85,-151 -85,-150 -85,-149 -85,-148 -85,-147 -85,-147 -85.3,-147 -85.6,-147 -85.9,-147 -86.2,-147 -86.5,-147 -86.8,-147 -87.1,-147 -87.4,-147 -87.7,-147 -88,-148 -88,-149 -88,-150 -88,-151 -88,-152 -88,-153 -88,-154 -88,-155 -88,-156 -88,-157 -88,-157 -87.7,-157 -87.4,-157 -87.1,-157 -86.8,-157 -86.5,-157 -86.2,-157 -85.9,-157 -85.6,-157 -85.3,-157 -85))", "dataset_titles": null, "datasets": null, "date_created": "Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Hall/0636687\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThis award supports a project to investigate late Pleistocene and Holocene changes in Scott Glacier, a key outlet glacier that flows directly into the Ross Sea just west of the present-day West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) grounding line. The overarching goals are to understand changes in WAIS configuration in the Ross Sea sector at and since the last glacial maximum (LGM) and to determine whether Holocene retreat observed in the Ross Embayment has ended or if it is still ongoing. To address these goals, moraine and drift sequences associated with Scott Glacier will be mapped and dated and ice thickness, surface velocity and surface mass balance will be measured to constrain an ice-flow model of the glacier. This model will be used to help interpret the dated geologic sequences. The intellectual merit of the project relates to gaining a better understanding of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and how changing activity of fast-flowing outlet glaciers and ice streams exerts strong control on the mass balance of the ice sheet. Previous work suggests that grounding-line retreat in the Ross Sea continued into the late Holocene and left open the possibility of ongoing deglaciation as part of a long-term trend. Results from Reedy Glacier, an outlet glacier just behind the grounding line, suggest that retreat may have slowed substantially over the past 2000 years and perhaps even stopped. By coupling the work on Scott Glacier with recent data from Reedy Glacier, the grounding-line position will be bracketed and it should be possible to establish whether the retreat has truly ended or if it is ongoing. The broader impacts of the work relate to the societal relevance of an improved understanding of the West Antarctic ice sheet to establish how it will respond to current and possible future environmental changes. The work addresses this key goal of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Initiative, as well as the International Polar Year focus on ice sheet history and dynamics. The work will develop future scientists through the education and training of one undergraduate and two Ph.D. students, interaction with K-12 students through classroom visits, web-based \u0027expedition\u0027 journals, letters from the field, and discussions with teachers. Results from this project will be posted with previous exposure dating results from Antarctica, on the University of Washington Cosmogenic Nuclide Lab website, which also provides information about chemical procedures and calculation methods to other scientists working with cosmogenic nuclides.", "east": -147.0, "geometry": "POINT(-152 -86.5)", "instruments": null, "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "Not provided", "locations": null, "north": -85.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Stone, John; Conway, Howard", "platforms": "Not provided", "repositories": null, "science_programs": null, "south": -88.0, "title": "Collaborative Research:Grounding-line Retreat in the Southern Ross Sea - Constraints from Scott Glacier", "uid": "p0000149", "west": -157.0}, {"awards": "0424589 Gogineni, S. Prasad", "bounds_geometry": "POLYGON((-137 -74,-132.1 -74,-127.2 -74,-122.3 -74,-117.4 -74,-112.5 -74,-107.6 -74,-102.7 -74,-97.8 -74,-92.9 -74,-88 -74,-88 -74.65,-88 -75.3,-88 -75.95,-88 -76.6,-88 -77.25,-88 -77.9,-88 -78.55,-88 -79.2,-88 -79.85,-88 -80.5,-92.9 -80.5,-97.8 -80.5,-102.7 -80.5,-107.6 -80.5,-112.5 -80.5,-117.4 -80.5,-122.3 -80.5,-127.2 -80.5,-132.1 -80.5,-137 -80.5,-137 -79.85,-137 -79.2,-137 -78.55,-137 -77.9,-137 -77.25,-137 -76.6,-137 -75.95,-137 -75.3,-137 -74.65,-137 -74))", "dataset_titles": "Airborne radar profiles of the Whillans, Bindschadler, and Kamb Ice Streams; Archive of data; Ice-penetrating radar internal stratigraphy over Dome C and the wider East Antarctic Plateau; Ku-band Radar Echograms; Radar Depth Sounder Echograms and Ice Thickness; Snow Radar Echograms", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "601411", "doi": "10.15784/601411", "keywords": "Antarctica; East Antarctic Plateau; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; ICECAP; Ice Penetrating Radar; Internal Reflecting Horizons", "people": "Greenbaum, Jamin; Young, Duncan A.; Frezzotti, Massimo; Mulvaney, Robert; Cavitte, Marie G. P; Paden, John; Muldoon, Gail R.; Quartini, Enrica; Kempf, Scott D.; Ng, Gregory; Ritz, Catherine; Blankenship, Donald D.; Roberts, Jason; Schroeder, Dustin; Tozer, Carly", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": "Dome C Ice Core", "title": "Ice-penetrating radar internal stratigraphy over Dome C and the wider East Antarctic Plateau", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601411"}, {"dataset_uid": "601048", "doi": "10.15784/601048", "keywords": "Airborne Radar; Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Ku-Band; Navigation; Radar", "people": "Rodriguez, Fernando; Paden, John; Leuschen, Carl; Gogineni, Prasad; Li, Jilu; Allen, Chris", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Ku-band Radar Echograms", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601048"}, {"dataset_uid": "002497", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "Project website", "science_program": null, "title": "Archive of data", "url": "https://www.cresis.ku.edu/data/accumulation"}, {"dataset_uid": "600384", "doi": "10.15784/600384", "keywords": "Airborne Radar; Antarctica; Basler; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Kamb Ice Stream; Radar; Siple Coast; Whillans Ice Stream", "people": "Hale, Richard; Paden, John", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Airborne radar profiles of the Whillans, Bindschadler, and Kamb Ice Streams", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/600384"}, {"dataset_uid": "601047", "doi": "10.15784/601047", "keywords": "Airborne Radar; Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; MCoRDS; Navigation; Radar", "people": "Rodriguez, Fernando; Gogineni, Prasad; Allen, Chris; Li, Jilu; Leuschen, Carl; Paden, John", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Radar Depth Sounder Echograms and Ice Thickness", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601047"}, {"dataset_uid": "601049", "doi": "10.15784/601049", "keywords": "Airborne Radar; Antarctica; Glaciers/ice Sheet; Glaciers/Ice Sheet; Glaciology; Navigation; Radar; Snow", "people": "Li, Jilu; Paden, John; Rodriguez, Fernando; Allen, Chris; Gogineni, Prasad; Leuschen, Carl", "repository": "USAP-DC", "science_program": null, "title": "Snow Radar Echograms", "url": "https://www.usap-dc.org/view/dataset/601049"}], "date_created": "Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award is for the continuation of the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), an NSF Science and Technology Center (STC) established in June 2005 to study present and probable future contributions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise. The Center?s vision is to understand and predict the role of polar ice sheets in sea level change. In particular, the Center?s mission is to develop technologies, to conduct field investigations, to compile data to understand why many outlet glaciers and ice streams are changing rapidly, and to develop models that explain and predict ice sheet response to climate change. The Center?s mission is also to educate and train a diverse population of graduate and undergraduate students in Center-related disciplines and to encourage K-12 students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM-fields). The long-term goals are to perform a four-dimensional characterization (space and time) of rapidly changing ice-sheet regions, develop diagnostic and predictive ice-sheet models, and contribute to future assessments of sea level change in a warming climate. In the first five years, significant progress was made in developing, testing and optimizing innovative sensors and platforms and completing a major aircraft campaign, which included sounding the channel under Jakobshavn Isbr\u00e6. In the second five years, research will focus on the interpretation of integrated data from a suite of sensors to understand the physical processes causing changes and the subsequent development and validation of models. Information about CReSIS can be found at http://www.cresis.ku.edu.\u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eThe intellectual merits of the STC are the multidisciplinary research it enables its faculty, staff and students to pursue, as well as the broad education and training opportunities it provides to students at all levels. During the first phase, the Center provided scientists and engineers with a collaborative research environment and the opportunity to interact, enabling the development of high-sensitivity radars integrated with several airborne platforms and innovative seismic instruments. Also, the Center successfully collected data on ice thickness and bed conditions, key variables in the study of ice dynamics and the development of models, for three major fast-flowing glaciers in Greenland. During the second phase, the Center will collect additional data over targeted sites in areas undergoing rapid changes; process, analyze and interpret collected data; and develop advanced process-oriented and ice sheet models to predict future behavior. The Center will continue to provide a rich environment for multidisciplinary education and mentoring for undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows, as well as for conducting K-12 education and public outreach. The broader impacts of the Center stem from addressing a global environmental problem with critical societal implications, providing a forum for citizens and policymakers to become informed about climate change issues, training the next generation of scientists and engineers to serve the nation, encouraging underrepresented students to pursue careers in STEM-related fields, and transferring new technologies to industry. Students involved in the Center find an intellectually stimulating atmosphere where collaboration between disciplines is the norm and exposure to a wide variety of methodologies and scientific issues enriches their educational experience. The next generation of researchers should reflect the diversity of our society; the Center will therefore continue its work with ECSU to conduct outreach and educational programs that attract minority students to careers in science and technology. The Center has also established a new partnership with ADMI that supports faculty and student exchanges at the national level and provides expanded opportunities for students and faculty to be involved in Center-related research and education activities. These, and other collaborations, will provide broader opportunities to encourage underrepresented students to pursue STEM careers. \u003cbr/\u003e\u003cbr/\u003eAs lead institution, The University of Kansas (KU) provides overall direction and management, as well as expertise in radar and remote sensing, Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and modeling and interpretation of data. Five partner institutions and a DOE laboratory play critical roles in the STC. The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) continues to participate in technology development for seismic measurements, field activities, and modeling. The Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing, Education and Research (CERSER) at Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) contributes its expertise to analyzing satellite data and generating high-level data products. ECSU also brings to the Center their extensive experience in mentoring and educating traditionally under-represented students. ADMI, the Association of Computer and Information Science/Engineering Departments at Minority Institutions, expands the program?s reach to underrepresented groups at the national level. Indiana University (IU) provides world-class expertise in CI and high-performance computing to address challenges in data management, processing, distribution and archival, as well as high-performance modeling requirements. The University of Washington (UW) provides expertise in satellite observations of ice sheets and process-oriented interpretation and model development. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) contributes in the area of ice sheet modeling. All partner institutions are actively involved in the analysis and interpretation of observational and numerical data sets.", "east": -88.0, "geometry": "POINT(-112.5 -77.25)", "instruments": "EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR ECHO SOUNDERS", "is_usap_dc": true, "keywords": "Remote Sensing; Not provided; Pine Island; Ice Sheet; DHC-6; Antarctic; Thwaites Region; Antarctica; Mass Balance; Accumulation; Velocity; Insar", "locations": "Antarctica; Antarctic; Pine Island; Thwaites Region", "north": -74.0, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems; Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Braaten, David; Joughin, Ian; Steig, Eric J.; Das, Sarah; Paden, John; Gogineni, Prasad", "platforms": "AIR-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e PROPELLER \u003e DHC-6; Not provided", "repo": "USAP-DC", "repositories": "Project website; USAP-DC", "science_programs": null, "south": -80.5, "title": "Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS)", "uid": "p0000102", "west": -137.0}, {"awards": "0440304 Jacobel, Robert", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "U.S. International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition web pages", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "000108", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "Project website", "science_program": null, "title": "U.S. International Trans Antarctic Scientific Expedition web pages", "url": "http://www2.umaine.edu/USITASE/index.html"}], "date_created": "Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "This award supports a project to perform ice radar studies of bedrock topography and internal layers along the second US ITASE traverse corridor extending from Taylor Dome to South Pole on the inland side of the Transantarctic Mountains. The radar will provide information immediately available in the field on ice thickness and internal layer structure to help in the selection of core sites as the traverse proceeds. These data will also be useful in locating additional radar and surface studies to characterize the drainage divides between major outlet glaciers flowing through the mountains and possible changes in them through time. Information from the radar on bed roughness and basal reflectivity, together with images of internal layer deformation will enable us to study changes in the character of ice flow as tributaries merge to trunk flow and velocities increase. Areas where wind scour and sublimation have brought old ice close to the surface will be investigated. Based on our results from the first ITASE traverse, it is also likely that there will be findings of opportunity, phenomena we have not anticipated that are revealed by the radar as the result of a discovery-based traverse. The interdisciplinary science goals of US ITASE are designed to accommodate a variety of interactive research programs and data collected are available to a broad scientific community. US ITASE also supports an extensive program of public outreach and the education and training of future scientists will be central to all activities of this proposal. St. Olaf College is an undergraduate liberal arts institution that emphasizes student participation in scientific research. This award supports two undergraduate students as well as a research associate and a graduate student who will be part of the US ITASE field team.", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "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 PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR ECHO SOUNDERS; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR SOUNDERS \u003e GPR", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "US ITASE; Stratigraphy; Radar; Antarctica; FIELD SURVEYS; Us Itase Ii; Bed Topography; Not provided; Internal Layers; FIELD INVESTIGATION; Taylor Dome; Transantarctic Mountains; West Antarctica; Traverse", "locations": "Antarctica; West Antarctica; Transantarctic Mountains; Taylor Dome", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Jacobel, Robert", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS; Not provided", "repo": "Project website", "repositories": "Project website", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Radar Studies of Internal Stratigraphy and Bed Topography along the US ITASE-II Traverse", "uid": "p0000116", "west": null}, {"awards": "0196441 Hamilton, Gordon", "bounds_geometry": null, "dataset_titles": "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.; US ITASE International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition", "datasets": [{"dataset_uid": "000109", "doi": "", "keywords": null, "people": null, "repository": "Project website", "science_program": null, "title": "US ITASE International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition", "url": "http://www2.umaine.edu/USITASE/"}, {"dataset_uid": "000586", "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"}], "date_created": "Thu, 30 Mar 2006 00:00:00 GMT", "description": "Not Available", "east": null, "geometry": null, "instruments": "IN SITU/LABORATORY INSTRUMENTS \u003e CORERS \u003e CORING DEVICES; 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 RADAR SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR; EARTH REMOTE SENSING INSTRUMENTS \u003e ACTIVE REMOTE SENSING \u003e PROFILERS/SOUNDERS \u003e RADAR SOUNDERS \u003e GPR", "is_usap_dc": false, "keywords": "Transantarctic Mountains; Not provided; US ITASE; Snow Accumulation; Mass Balance; Transantarctic; Outlet Glaciers; Antarctica; FIELD INVESTIGATION; FIELD SURVEYS", "locations": "Antarctica; Transantarctic Mountains", "north": null, "nsf_funding_programs": "Antarctic Glaciology", "paleo_time": null, "persons": "Hamilton, Gordon S.", "platforms": "LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD INVESTIGATION; LAND-BASED PLATFORMS \u003e FIELD SITES \u003e FIELD SURVEYS; Not provided", "repo": "Project website", "repositories": "NSIDC; Project website", "science_programs": null, "south": null, "title": "Mass Balance and Accumulation Rate Along US ITASE Routes", "uid": "p0000727", "west": null}]
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Project Title/Abstract/Map | NSF Award(s) | Date Created | PIs / Scientists | Dataset Links and Repositories | Abstract | Bounds Geometry | Geometry | Selected | Visible | |||||||
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NSFGEO-NERC: Investigating the Direct Influence of Meltwater on Antarctic Ice Sheet Dynamics
|
2053169 |
2023-09-15 | Kingslake, Jonathan; Sole, Andrew; Livingstone, Stephen; Winter, Kate; Ely, Jeremy | No dataset link provided | When ice sheets and glaciers lose ice faster than it accumulates from snowfall, they shrink and contribute to sea-level rise. This has consequences for coastal communities around the globe by, for example, increasing the frequency of damaging storm surges. Sea-level rise is already underway and a major challenge for the geoscience community is improving predictions of how this will evolve. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is the largest potential contributor to sea-level rise and its future is highly uncertain. It loses ice through two main mechanisms: the formation of icebergs and melting at the base of floating ice shelves on its periphery. Ice flows under gravity towards the ocean and the rate of ice flow controls how fast ice sheets and glaciers shrink. In Greenland and Antarctica, ice flow is focused into outlet glaciers and ice streams, which flow much faster than surrounding areas. Moreover, parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet speed up and slow down substantially on hourly to seasonal time scales, particularly where meltwater from the surface reaches the base of the ice. Meltwater reaching the base changes ice flow by altering basal water pressure and consequently the friction exerted on the ice by the rock and sediment beneath. This phenomenon has been observed frequently in Greenland but not in Antarctica. Recent satellite observations suggest this phenomenon also occurs on outlet glaciers in the Antarctic Peninsula. Meltwater reaching the base of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is likely to become more common as air temperature and surface melting are predicted to increase around Antarctica this century. This project aims to confirm the recent satellite observations, establish a baseline against which to compare future changes, and improve understanding of the direct influence of meltwater on Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics. This is a project jointly funded by the National Science Foundation?s Directorate for Geosciences (NSF/GEO) and the National Environment Research Council (NERC) of the United Kingdom (UK) via the NSF/GEO-NERC Lead Agency Agreement. This Agreement allows a single joint US/UK proposal to be submitted and peer-reviewed by the Agency whose investigator has the largest proportion of the budget. Upon successful joint determination of an award recommendation, each Agency funds the proportion of the budget that supports scientists at institutions in their respective countries. This project will include a field campaign on Flask Glacier, an Antarctic Peninsula outlet glacier, and a continent-wide remote sensing survey. These activities will allow the team to test three hypotheses related to the Antarctic Ice Sheet?s dynamic response to surface meltwater: (1) short-term changes in ice velocity indicated by satellite data result from surface meltwater reaching the bed, (2) this is widespread in Antarctica today, and (3) this results in a measurable increase in mean annual ice discharge. The project is a collaboration between US- and UK-based researchers and will be supported logistically by the British Antarctic Survey. The project aims to provide insights into both the drivers and implications of short-term changes in ice flow velocity caused by surface melting. For example, showing conclusively that meltwater directly influences Antarctic ice dynamics would have significant implications for understanding the response of Antarctica to atmospheric warming, as it did in Greenland when the phenomenon was first detected there twenty years ago. This work will also potentially influence other fields, as surface meltwater reaching the bed of the Antarctic Ice Sheet may affect ice rheology, subglacial hydrology, submarine melting, calving, ocean circulation, and ocean biogeochemistry. The project aims to have broader impacts on science and society by supporting early-career scientists, UK-US collaboration, education and outreach, and adoption of open data science approaches within the glaciological community. | None | None | false | false | |||||||
Holocene Deglaciation of the Western Ross Embayment: Constraints from East Antarctic Outlet Glaciers
|
1542756 |
2022-12-12 | Koutnik, Michelle; Smith, Ben; Conway, Howard; Shapero, Daniel |
|
In this project we investigated glaciers that drain ice from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet through the Transantarctic Mountains into the present-day Ross Ice Shelf. The outlet glaciers that flow through the Transantarctic Mountains have thinned significantly over the past 15,000 years, especially as they retreated from Last Glacial Maximum highstands to their present-day grounding lines. At certain locations and for certain glaciers, rocks or bedrock have been sampled to provide constraints on the timing of when ice retreated from these locations. In the locations where geochronological data are available we can use these data as direct constraints on ice-flow models that simulate ice elevation change over time. The intellectual merit of this work is using ice-flow models to spatially and temporally extrapolate between these limited geochronological data points, which enables new understanding of glacier evolution. The mountainous topography in this region is complex, and there are limited measurements of the topography beneath the ice of the Transantarctic outlet glaciers. Since the topography of the glacier bed is an important control on ice flow and is a necessary boundary condition in models we developed a new gridded bed product at Beardmore Glacier, the one location where sufficient data were available, and we compared this to continent-scale gridded bed products. We found that for this glacier, the BedMachine v1 product was reasonably similar to the Beardmore Glacier bed topography measurements; our limited evaluation suggests that the BedMachine product may be sufficient at other Transantarctic outlets where bed measurements are not available, but that other compilations of bed topography data that do not include information about ice flow directions do not provide reliable results. Using these data and available geochronological constraints we investigated Beardmore Glacier evolution since the Last Glacial Maximum using simplified (flowline) models of ice flow. In addition to flowline modeling at Beardmore Glacier, we developed a flow-model setup using the open-source 'icepack' model that uses the shallow stream equations and resolves flow in both the x and y directions. The key value added over flowline (or parameterized flowband) models is that this can capture converging and diverging ice flow, variable side wall and bottom drag, and other geometric complexities. In these simulations we can evaluate the past accumulation, ice influx, and ice outflux to compare controls on deglaciation to data constraints on the chronology of deglaciation. We also used a flowline model to investigate the Darwin-Hatherton Glacier System. Exposure ages and radiocarbon ages of glacial deposits at four locations alongside Hatherton and Darwin glaciers record several hundred meters of late Pleistocene to early Holocene thickening relative to present. Deglaciation was relatively complex at this site, and we also found that Byrd glacier likely contributed ice to the catchment of the Darwin-Hatherton glacier system during the last glacial maximum, and that subsequent convergent flow from Byrd and Mulock glaciers during deglaciation complicated the response of the Darwin-Hatherton system. These new insights can be used on their own to better understand local deglaciation, and can also be used to evaluate regional or continent-scale model calculations. Separately, we investigated the general response of outlet glaciers to different sources of climate forcing. We found that outlet glaciers have a characteristically different response over time to surface-mass-balance forcing applied over the interior than to oceanic forcing applied at the grounding line. Our models demonstrated that ocean forcing first engages the fast, local response and then the slow adjustment of interior ice, whereas surface-mass-balance forcing is dominated by the slow interior adjustment. These insights contributed to our general understanding of how outlet glaciers may have evolved over time. Our new model investigations provide a framework that can be applied at other Transantarctic outlet glaciers where geochronological data are available. In particular, our 'icepack' setup is an archived and documented resource for the community. These tools are available for future investigations, including additional investigations at Beardmore Glacier and at other Transantarctic Mountain outlet glaciers. Scientific broader impacts include that this contributes to our understanding of the past behavior of East Antarctic ice, which provides an important constraint on the future evolution of Antarctica. Our team has engaged in public outreach and has engaged students in this research. Two graduate students led in aspects of this work, and have since gone on to research positions after their PhD. | POLYGON((-180 -77,-179.5 -77,-179 -77,-178.5 -77,-178 -77,-177.5 -77,-177 -77,-176.5 -77,-176 -77,-175.5 -77,-175 -77,-175 -77.9,-175 -78.8,-175 -79.7,-175 -80.6,-175 -81.5,-175 -82.4,-175 -83.3,-175 -84.2,-175 -85.1,-175 -86,-175.5 -86,-176 -86,-176.5 -86,-177 -86,-177.5 -86,-178 -86,-178.5 -86,-179 -86,-179.5 -86,180 -86,177.5 -86,175 -86,172.5 -86,170 -86,167.5 -86,165 -86,162.5 -86,160 -86,157.5 -86,155 -86,155 -85.1,155 -84.2,155 -83.3,155 -82.4,155 -81.5,155 -80.6,155 -79.7,155 -78.8,155 -77.9,155 -77,157.5 -77,160 -77,162.5 -77,165 -77,167.5 -77,170 -77,172.5 -77,175 -77,177.5 -77,-180 -77)) | POINT(170 -81.5) | false | false | |||||||
Collaborative Research: Ice sheet erosional interaction with hot geotherm in West Antarctica
|
1917176 1917009 1916982 |
2022-10-19 | Siddoway, Christine; Thomson, Stuart; Teyssier, Christian |
|
Sediment records off the coast of Marie Byrd Land (MBL), Antarctica suggest frequent and dramatic changes in the size of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) over short (tens of thousands of years) and long (millions of years) time frames in the past. WAIS currently overrides much of MBL and covers the rugged and scoured bedrock landscape. The ice sheet carved narrow linear troughs that reach depths of two to three thousand meters below sea level as outlet glaciers flowed from the interior of the continent to the oceans. As a result, large volumes of fragmented continental bedrock were carried out to the seabed. The glaciers cut downward into a region of crystalline rocks (i.e. granite) that display a significant temperature change as a function of rock depth. The strong geothermal gradient in the bedrock is favorable for determining when the bedrock became exhumed, or "uncovered" by action of the overriding icesheet or other processes. Our approach takes advantage of a reference horizon, or paleogeotherm, established when high-T mineral thermochronometers across Marie Byrd Land (MBL) cooled from temperatures of >800° C to 300° C, due to rapid regional extension at ~100 Ma . The event imparted a signature through which the subsequent Cenozoic landscape history can be explored: MBL's elevated geothermal gradient, sustained during the Cenozoic, created favorable conditions for sensitive apatite and zircon low-T thermochronometers to record bedrock cooling related to glacial incision. Analyzing the chemistry of minerals (zircon and apatite) within fragments of eroded rock will reveal the rate and timing of the bedrock erosion and development of topography in West Antarctica. This collaborative project addresses the following questions: When did the land become high enough for a large ice sheet to form? What was the regional pre-glacial topography? Under what climate conditions, and at what point in the growth of an ice sheet, did glaciers begin to cut sharply into bedrock to form the narrow troughs that flow seaward? The research will lead to greater understanding of past Antarctic ice sheet fluctuations and identify precise timing of glacial incisionm which will clarify the onset of WAIS glacier incision and assess the evolution of Cenozoic paleo-topography. The collaborative project provides training for one graduate and 8 undergraduate students in STEM. These students, together with PIs, will refine West Antarctic ice sheet history and obtain results that pertain to the international societal response to contemporary ice sheet change and its global consequences. The methods used for the research include: •Low-temperature (T) thermochronology and Pecube 3-D thermo-kinematic modeling, applied to the timing and characterizatio episodes of glacial erosional incision. •Single-grain double- and triple-dating of zircon and apatite, to determine the detailed crustal thermal evolution of the region, enabling the research team to identify the comparative topographic influences on glaciation versus bedrock uplift induced by Eocene to present tectonism/magmatism. Students and PIs employed state-of-the-art analytical facilities in Arizona and Minnesota, expanding the geo- and thermochronologic history of MBL from bedrock samples and offshore sedimentary deposits. The temperature and time data we acquired will provide constraints on paleotopography, isostasy, and the thermal evolution of MBL that will be modeled in 3D using Pecube model simulations. Within hot crust, less incision is required to expose bedrock containing the distinct thermochronometric profile; a prediction we are testing through use of inverse Pecube 3-D models of the thermal field through which bedrock and detrital samples cooled. Using results from Pecube, the ICI-Hot team will examine time-varying topography formed in response to changes in erosion rates, topographic relief, geothermal gradient and/or flexural isostatic rigidity. These effects are manifestations of dynamic processes in the WAIS, including ice sheet loading, ice volume fluctuations, relative motion upon crustal faults, and magmatism-related elevation increase across the MBL dome. The project makes use of pre-existing sample collections housed at the US Polar Rock Repository, IODP's Gulf Coast Core Repository, and the OSU Marine and Geology Repository. 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. | POLYGON((-160.16 -67.15,-154.572 -67.15,-148.984 -67.15,-143.39600000000002 -67.15,-137.808 -67.15,-132.22 -67.15,-126.632 -67.15,-121.04400000000001 -67.15,-115.456 -67.15,-109.868 -67.15,-104.28 -67.15,-104.28 -68.165,-104.28 -69.18,-104.28 -70.19500000000001,-104.28 -71.21000000000001,-104.28 -72.225,-104.28 -73.24,-104.28 -74.255,-104.28 -75.27,-104.28 -76.285,-104.28 -77.3,-109.868 -77.3,-115.456 -77.3,-121.044 -77.3,-126.632 -77.3,-132.22 -77.3,-137.808 -77.3,-143.396 -77.3,-148.98399999999998 -77.3,-154.572 -77.3,-160.16 -77.3,-160.16 -76.285,-160.16 -75.27,-160.16 -74.255,-160.16 -73.24,-160.16 -72.225,-160.16 -71.21000000000001,-160.16 -70.19500000000001,-160.16 -69.18,-160.16 -68.165,-160.16 -67.15)) | POINT(-132.22 -72.225) | false | false | |||||||
Collaborative Research: Stability and Dynamics of Antarctic Marine Outlet Glaciers
|
1543530 1543533 |
2022-10-19 | van der Veen, Cornelis; Stearns, Leigh; Paden, John | No dataset link provided | Van der Veen/1543530<br/><br/>The objective of this research is to gain better understanding of the West Antarctic ice flow in the transition region from grounded ice to floating ice shelves and investigate the conditions that can initiate and sustain major retreat of these glaciers. Several major Antarctic outlet glaciers and ice streams will be investigated using a suite of observational techniques and modeling tools. Glaciers include Thwaites Glacier, which has become a focal point in the discussion of West Antarctic retreat, Whillans Ice Stream as an example of the archetype ice stream, and Byrd Glacier, a major outlet glacier draining East Antarctica through the Transantarctic Mountains into the Ross Ice Shelf. This study will investigate whether the ongoing changes in these glaciers will lead to long-term mass loss (the onset of ice sheet collapse), or whether these glaciers will quickly stabilize with a new geometry. <br/><br/>To adequately incorporate the dynamic behavior of outlet glaciers and ice streams requires inclusion of the relevant physical processes, and the development of regional models that employ a numerical grid with a horizontal grid spacing sufficiently refined to capture smaller-scale bed topographic features that may control the flow of these glaciers. This award revisits the issue of stability of marine-terminating glaciers whose grounding line is located on a retrograded bed slope. In particular, an attempt will be made to resolve the question whether observed rapid changes are the result of perturbations at the terminus or grounding line, or whether these changes reflect ice-dynamical forcing over the grounded reaches. High-resolution satellite imagery will be used to investigate ice-flow perturbations on smaller spatial scales than has been done before, to evaluate the importance of localized sites of high basal resistance on grounding-line stability. This collaborative project involves a range of modeling strategies including force-budget analysis, flow-band modeling, Full Stokes modeling for local studies, and using the Ice Sheet System Model developed at JPL for regional modeling. Broader Impacts include training two graduate students in computer simulations and ice sheet modeling algorithms. The work will also expand on a web-based interactive flowline model, so that it includes more realistic grounding line dynamics. | 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)) | POINT(0 -89.999) | false | false | |||||||
OPP-PRF: High-resolution Nested Antarctic Ice Sheet Modeling to Reconcile Marine and Terrestrial Geologic Data
|
2138556 |
2021-11-09 | Halberstadt, Anna Ruth | No dataset link provided | This project combines numerical simulations and geologic data to explore fundamental knowledge gaps regarding the interpretation and use of marine and terrestrial datasets. This work will produce an ensemble of continent-wide coupled ice sheet and glacial isostatic adjustment simulations, constrained with comprehensive existing geologic data, to reproduce a history of deglacial Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution that is compatible with the geologic record as well as glaciologically and gravitationally self-consistent. Comparison between simulations and data is improved through high-resolution nested ice sheet modeling techniques, which provide unprecedented context for exposure age data generally located in regions of complex topography. Numerical simulations will be performed with systematically varied parameters and boundary conditions, and can thus support an investigation of (1) chronological mismatches between terrestrial thinning and marine ice sheet retreat during the mid-Holocene, and (2) how marine grounding-line dynamics are propagated upstream to coastal outlet glaciers and further interior under a variety of different scenarios. | 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)) | POINT(0 -89.999) | false | false | |||||||
Collaborative Research: Characterizing Brittle Failure and Fracture Propagation in Fast Ice Sliding with Dynamic Rupture Models based on Whillans Ice Stream Seismic/Geodetic Data
|
1542885 |
2020-10-09 | Dunham, Eric |
|
This project investigates a rapidly moving section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet known as the Whillans Ice Stream. Ice streams and outlet glaciers are the major pathways for ice discharge from ice sheets into the ocean. Consequently, understanding ice stream dynamics, specifically the processes controlling the frictional resistance of ice sliding on sediments at its base, is essential for predictive modeling of how Earth's ice sheets will respond to a changing climate. Rather than flowing smoothly, Whillans Ice Stream advances in stick-slip cycles: brief periods of rapid sliding, equivalent to magnitude 7 earthquakes, alternating with much longer periods of repose. The PIs will perform simulations of these stick-slip cycles using computer codes originally developed for modeling tectonic earthquakes. By matching observed ice motions, the PIs will constrain the range of frictional processes acting at the base of the ice stream. An additional focus of the project is on brittle fracture processes in ice, expressed through seismic waves radiated by faulting and/or crevassing episodes that accompany the large-scale sliding events. An understanding of ice fracture provides a basis for assessing the susceptibility of ice shelves to rifting and catastrophic disintegration. Project results will be incorporated into outreach activities (from elementary school to community college events) as well as a polar science class for the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS) program for high school students.<br/><br/>Simulations of the stick-slip cycle will employ 3D dynamic rupture models that simultaneously solve for the seismic wavefield and rupture process, consistent with elastodynamic material response and friction laws on the ice stream bed. Stresses and frictional properties will be varied to achieve consistency with surface GPS and broadband seismic data as well as borehole seismograms from the WISSARD project. The results will be interpreted using laboratory till friction experiments, which link velocity-weakening/strengthening behavior to temperature and water content, and to related experiments quantifying basal drag from ice flow over rough beds. The source mechanism of seismicity accompanying the slip events (shear faulting versus crevassing) will be determined using 3D waveform modeling in conjunction with mechanical models of the seismic source processes. This proposal does not require fieldwork in the Antarctic. | None | None | false | false | |||||||
Air-Ground Study of Tectonics at the Boundary Between the Eastern Ross Embayment and Western Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica: Basement Geology and Structure
|
9615282 9615281 |
2020-04-24 | Luyendyk, Bruce P.; Siddoway, Christine |
|
This award supports a collaborative project that combines air and ground geological-geophysical investigations to understand the tectonic and geological development of the boundary between the Ross Sea Rift and the Marie Byrd Land (MBL) volcanic province. The project will determine the Cenozoic tectonic history of the region and whether Neogene structures that localized outlet glacier flow developed within the context of Cenozoic rifting on the eastern Ross Embayment margin, or within the volcanic province in MBL. The geological structure at the boundary between the Ross Embayment and western MBL may be a result of: 1) Cenozoic extension on the eastern shoulder of the Ross Sea rift; 2) uplift and crustal extension related to Neogene mantle plume activity in western MBL; or a combination of the two. Faulting and volcanism, mountain uplift, and glacier downcutting appear to now be active in western MBL, where generally East-to-West-flowing outlet glaciers incise Paleozoic and Mesozoic bedrock, and deglaciated summits indicate a previous North-South glacial flow direction. This study requires data collection using SOAR (Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research, a facility supported by Office of Polar Programs which utilizes high precision differential GPS to support a laser altimeter, ice-penetrating radar, a towed proton magnetometer, and a Bell BGM-3 gravimeter). This survey requires data for 37,000 square kilometers using 5.3 kilometer line spacing with 15.6 kilometer tie lines, and 86,000 square kilometers using a grid of 10.6 by 10.6 kilometer spacing. Data will be acquired over several key features in the region including, among other, the eastern edge of the Ross Sea rift, over ice stream OEO, the transition from the Edward VII Peninsula plateau to the Ford Ranges, the continuation to the east of a gravity high known from previous reconnaissance mapping over the Fosdick Metamorphic Complex, an d the extent of the high-amplitude magnetic anomalies (volcanic centers?) detected southeast of the northern Ford Ranges by other investigators. SOAR products will include glaciology data useful for studying driving stresses, glacial flow and mass balance in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). The ground program is centered on the southern Ford Ranges. Geologic field mapping will focus on small scale brittle structures for regional kinematic interpretation, on glaciated surfaces and deposits, and on datable volcanic rocks for geochronologic control. The relative significance of fault and joint sets, the timing relationships between them, and the probable context of their formation will also be determined. Exposure ages will be determined for erosion surfaces and moraines. Interpretation of potential field data will be aided by on ground sampling for magnetic properties and density as well as ground based gravity measurements. Oriented samples will be taken for paleomagnetic studies. Combined airborne and ground investigations will obtain basic data for describing the geology and structure at the eastern boundary of the Ross Embayment both in outcrop and ice covered areas, and may be used to distinguish between Ross Sea rift- related structural activity from uplift and faulting on the perimeter of the MBL dome and volcanic province. Outcrop geology and structure will be extrapolated with the aerogeophysical data to infer the geology that resides beneath the WAIS. The new knowledge of Neogene tectonics in western MBL will contribute to a comprehensive model for the Cenozoic Ross rift and to understanding of the extent of plume activity in MBL. Both are important for determining the influence of Neogene tectonics on the ice streams and WAIS. | POLYGON((-170 -76,-166.5 -76,-163 -76,-159.5 -76,-156 -76,-152.5 -76,-149 -76,-145.5 -76,-142 -76,-138.5 -76,-135 -76,-135 -76.8,-135 -77.6,-135 -78.4,-135 -79.2,-135 -80,-135 -80.8,-135 -81.6,-135 -82.4,-135 -83.2,-135 -84,-138.5 -84,-142 -84,-145.5 -84,-149 -84,-152.5 -84,-156 -84,-159.5 -84,-163 -84,-166.5 -84,-170 -84,-170 -83.2,-170 -82.4,-170 -81.6,-170 -80.8,-170 -80,-170 -79.2,-170 -78.4,-170 -77.6,-170 -76.8,-170 -76)) | POINT(-152.5 -80) | false | false | |||||||
Collaborative Research: East Antarctic Outlet Glacier Dynamics
|
1141866 1141889 |
2018-09-09 | Conway, Howard; Winberry, Paul |
|
Conway/1141866<br/><br/>This award supports a project to conduct a suite of experiments to study spatial and temporal variations of basal conditions beneath Beardmore Glacier, an East Antarctic outlet glacier that discharges into the Ross Sea Embayment. The intellectual merit of the project is that it should help verify whether or not global warming will play a much larger role in the future mass balance of ice sheets than previously considered. Recent observations of rapid changes in discharge of fast-flowing outlet glaciers and ice streams suggest that dynamical responses to warming could affect that ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Assessment of possible consequences of these responses is hampered by the lack of information about the basal boundary conditions. The leading hypothesis is that variations in basal conditions exert strong control on the discharge of outlet glaciers. Airborne and surface-based radar measurements of Beardmore Glacier will be made to map the ice thickness and geometry of the sub-glacial trough and active and passive seismic experiments, together with ground-based radar and GPS measurements will be made to map spatial and temporal variations of conditions at the ice-bed interface. The observational data will be used to constrain dynamic models of glacier flow. The models will be used to address the primary controls on the dynamics of Antarctic outlet glaciers, the conditions at the bed, their spatial and temporal variation, and how such variability might affect the sliding and flow of these glaciers. The work will also explore whether or not these outlet glaciers could draw down the interior of East Antarctica, and if so, how fast. The study will take three years including two field seasons to complete and results from the work will be disseminated through public and professional meetings and journal publications. All data and metadata will be made available through the NSIDC web portal. The broader impacts of the work are that it will help elucidate the fundamental physics of outlet glacier dynamics which is needed to improve predictions of the response of ice sheets to changing environmental conditions. The project will also provide support for early career investigators and will provide training and support for one graduate and two undergraduate students. All collaborators are currently involved in scientific outreach and graduate student education and they are committed to fostering diversity. | None | None | false | false | |||||||
Subglacial drainage and slip modeling in Antarctica: relating lakes to ice discharge
|
1043481 |
2016-06-17 | Creyts, Timothy; Bell, Robin | No dataset link provided | 1043481/Creyts<br/><br/>This award supports a project to develop models of subglacial hydrology in order to understand dynamics of water movement, lake drainage, and how drainage affects ice slip over deformable till with the goal of understanding present and future behavior of fast flowing regions of Antarctica. Drainage of subglacial water falls into two broad categories: distributed and channelized. In distributed systems, water is forced out along the ice?bed interface. Conversely, in channelized systems water is drawn toward a few major arteries. Observations of lake filling and draining sup- port changes in subglacial water flow and suggest a switch from a low to high discharge state or vice versa. Filling or draining can move the subglacial system from one type of drainage morphology to the other. A switch of drainage type will affect slip along the ice-bed interface because distributed morphologies tend to cause enhanced sliding whereas channelized morphologies tend to cause enhanced coupling of the ice-bed interface. Conditions beneath fast flowing ice streams of West Antarctica are ideal for switching between subglacial drainage morphologies. Fast flowing ice in West Antarctica commonly rests on sub- glacial tills and is coincident, in some areas, with observed subglacial lake filling and draining. The goal of the work is to develop the next generation of spatially distributed hydraulic models that capture lake filling and draining phenomena and investigate the effects on subglacial till. Models will be theoretical, process-based descriptions of water drainage and till failure along fast flowing ice streams. Models will be based on balance of mass, momentum, and energy. Building on previous studies, we will incorporate two dimensional movement of water to investigate distributed basal hydrology, distributed basal hydrology coupled to channels, and couple these models with till deformation. These models will provide a framework for determining how lake draining and filling affects ice discharge by providing a constraints on ice?bed coupling. The intellectual merit of the work is that it will advance knowledge about drainage of water subglacially beneath Antarctica and how water affects ice motion. Our modeling provides a unique opportunity to understand the role subglacial hydrology plays in the dynamics of key outlet glaciers and ice streams. The broader impacts of the work include training for one postdoctoral scientist and training for a summer student in simple laboratory techniques for analog experiments. In addition, the proposal dovetails into an existing polar education and outreach plan by including a component of physical, numerical, and scale models in programs developed for high school and middle school classroom visits, teacher workshops and community events. Additionally, because knowledge of glacial hydrology is increasing rapidly, we will convene a workshop on observations and models of subglacial hydrology to facilitate transfer of knowledge and ideas. | 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)) | POINT(0 -89.999) | false | false | |||||||
Age and Composition of the East Antarctic Shield by Isotopic Analysis of Granite and Glacial Till
|
0944645 |
2015-02-11 | Goodge, John | No dataset link provided | Intellectual Merit: <br/>Because of extensive ice cover and sparse remote-sensing data, the geology of the Precambrian East Antarctic Shield (EAS) remains largely unexplored with information limited to coastal outcrops from the African, Indian and Australian sectors. The East Antarctic lithosphere is globally important: as one of the largest coherent Precambrian shields, including rocks as old as ~3.8 Ga, it played an important role in global crustal growth; it is a key piece in assembly of the Rodinia and Gondwana supercontinents; it is the substrate to Earth?s major ice cap, including numerous sub-glacial lakes, and influences its thermal state and mechanical stability; and its geotectonic association with formerly adjacent continental blocks in South Africa, India and Australia suggest that it might harbor important mineral resources. This project will increase understanding of the age and composition of the western EAS lithosphere underlying and adjacent to the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) using U-Pb ages, and Hf- and O-isotope analysis of zircon in early Paleozoic granitoids and Pleistocene glacial tills. TAM granites of the early Paleozoic Ross Orogen represent an areally extensive continental-margin arc suite that can provide direct information about the EAS crust from which it melted and/or through which it passed. Large rock clasts of igneous and metamorphic lithologies entrained in glacial tills at the head of major outlet glaciers traversing the TAM provide eroded samples of the proximal EAS basement. Zircons in these materials will provide data about age and inheritance (U-Pb), crustal vs. mantle origin (O isotopes), and crustal sources and evolution (Hf isotopes). Integrated along a significant part of the TAM, these data will help define broader crustal provinces that can be correlated with geophysical data and used to test models of crustal assembly. <br/><br/>Broader impacts: <br/>This project will provide a research opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students. Undergraduates will be involved as Research Assistants in sample preparation, imaging, and analytical procedures, and conducting their own independent research. The two main elements of this project will form the basis of MS thesis projects for two graduate students at UMD. Through this project they will gain a good understanding of petrology, isotope geochemistry, and analytical methods. The broader scientific impacts of this work are that it will help develop a better understanding of the origin and evolution of East Antarctic lithosphere underlying and adjacent to the TAM, which will be of value to the broader earth science and glaciological community. Furthermore, knowledge of East Antarctic geology is of continuing interest to the general public because of strong curiosity about past supercontinents, what?s under the ice, and the impact of global warming on ice-sheet stability. | None | None | false | false | |||||||
Collaborative Research: Byrd Glacier Flow Dynamics
|
0944087 |
2015-01-23 | Stearns, Leigh; Hamilton, Gordon S. | No dataset link provided | This award supports a project to understand the flow dynamics of large, fast-moving outlet glaciers that drain the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The project includes an integrated field, remote sensing and modeling study of Byrd Glacier which is a major pathway for the discharge of mass from the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) to the ocean. Recent work has shown that the glacier can undergo short-lived but significant changes in flow speed in response to perturbations in its boundary conditions. Because outlet glacier speeds exert a major control on ice sheet mass balance and modulate the ice sheet contribution to sea level rise, it is essential that their sensitivity to a range of dynamic processes is properly understood and incorporated into prognostic ice sheet models. The intellectual merit of the project is that the results from this study will provide critically important information regarding the flow dynamics of large EAIS outlet glaciers. The proposed study is designed to address variations in glacier behavior on timescales of minutes to years. A dense network of global positioning satellite (GPS) instruments on the grounded trunk and floating portions of the glacier will provide continuous, high-resolution time series of horizontal and vertical motions over a 26-month period. These results will be placed in the context of a longer record of remote sensing observations covering a larger spatial extent, and the combined datasets will be used to constrain a numerical model of the glacier's flow dynamics. The broader impacts of the work are that this project will generate results which are likely to be a significant component of next-generation ice sheet models seeking to predict the evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and future rates of sea level rise. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlights the imperfect understanding of outlet glacier dynamics as a major obstacle to the production of an accurate sea level rise projections. This project will provide significant research opportunities for several early-career scientists, including the lead PI for this proposal (she is both a new investigator and a junior faculty member at a large research university) and two PhD-level graduate students. The students will be trained in glaciology, geodesy and numerical modeling, contributing to society's need for experts in those fields. In addition, this project will strengthen international collaboration between polar scientists and geodesists in the US and Spain. The research team will work closely with science educators in the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) outreach program to disseminate project results to non-specialist audiences. | POLYGON((145 -80,147 -80,149 -80,151 -80,153 -80,155 -80,157 -80,159 -80,161 -80,163 -80,165 -80,165 -80.035,165 -80.07,165 -80.105,165 -80.14,165 -80.175,165 -80.21,165 -80.245,165 -80.28,165 -80.315,165 -80.35,163 -80.35,161 -80.35,159 -80.35,157 -80.35,155 -80.35,153 -80.35,151 -80.35,149 -80.35,147 -80.35,145 -80.35,145 -80.315,145 -80.28,145 -80.245,145 -80.21,145 -80.175,145 -80.14,145 -80.105,145 -80.07,145 -80.035,145 -80)) | POINT(155 -80.175) | false | false | |||||||
Collaborative Research: Pleistocene East Antarctic Ice Sheet History as Recorded in Sediment Provenance and Chronology of High-elevation TAM Moraines
|
0944475 |
2014-07-17 | Kaplan, Michael |
|
The proposed work will investigate changes in the compositional variation of glacial tills over time across two concentric sequences of Pleistocene moraines located adjacent to the heads of East Antarctic outlet glaciers in the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM). The chronologic framework for this work will be generated from cosmogenic exposure ages of boulders on prominent morainal ridges. The PIs hypothesize that variations in till composition may indicate a change in ice flow direction or a change in the composition of the original source area, while ages of the moraines provide a long-term terrestrial perspective on ice sheet dynamics. Both results are vital for modeling experiments that aim to reconstruct the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and assess its role in the global climate system and its potential impact on global sea level rise. The variation of till compositions through time also allows for a more accurate interpretation of sediment cores from the Ross Sea and the Southern Ocean. Additionally, till exposures at the head of some East Antarctic outlet glaciers have been shown to contain subglacial material derived from East Antarctic bedrock, providing a window through the ice to view East Antarctica?s inaccessible bedrock. Till samples will be collected from two well-preserved sequences of moraine crests at Mt. Howe (head of Scott Glacier) and Mt. Achernar (between Beardmore and Nimrod Glaciers). Each size fraction in glacial till provides potentially valuable information, and the PIs will measure the petrography of the clast and sand fractions, quantitative X-ray diffraction on the crushed <2mm fraction, elemental abundance of the silt/clay fraction, and U/Pb of detrital zircons in the sand fraction. Data collection will rely on established methods previously used in this region and the PIs will also explore new methods to assess their efficacy. On the same moraines crests sampled for provenance studies, the PIs will sample for cosmogenic surface exposure analyses to provide a chronologic framework at the sites for provenance changes through time. <br/><br/>Broader Impact <br/>The proposed research involves graduate and undergraduate training in a diverse array of laboratory methods. Students and PIs will be make presentations to community and campus groups, as well as conduct interviews with local news outlets. The proposed work also establishes a new, potentially long-term, collaboration between scientists at IUPUI and LDEO and brings a new PI (Kaplan) into the field of Antarctic Earth Sciences. | POLYGON((-149.7 -84.1,-118.61 -84.1,-87.52 -84.1,-56.43 -84.1,-25.34 -84.1,5.75 -84.1,36.84 -84.1,67.93 -84.1,99.02 -84.1,130.11 -84.1,161.2 -84.1,161.2 -84.43,161.2 -84.76,161.2 -85.09,161.2 -85.42,161.2 -85.75,161.2 -86.08,161.2 -86.41,161.2 -86.74,161.2 -87.07,161.2 -87.4,130.11 -87.4,99.02 -87.4,67.93 -87.4,36.84 -87.4,5.75 -87.4,-25.34 -87.4,-56.43 -87.4,-87.52 -87.4,-118.61 -87.4,-149.7 -87.4,-149.7 -87.07,-149.7 -86.74,-149.7 -86.41,-149.7 -86.08,-149.7 -85.75,-149.7 -85.42,-149.7 -85.09,-149.7 -84.76,-149.7 -84.43,-149.7 -84.1)) | POINT(5.75 -85.75) | false | false | |||||||
Collaborative Research: East Antarctic outlet glacier contributions to the Ross Sea from chronology of detrital grains
|
1043619 1043572 |
2014-02-18 | Licht, Kathy; Hemming, Sidney R. |
|
Intellectual Merit: <br/>The PIs proposed a provenance study of glacial deposits in the Ross Embayment that will provide a broad scale geochronologic survey of detrital minerals in till to help characterize bedrock beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet and constrain Antarctica?s glacial history. This project capitalizes on previous investments in field sampling. Analytical tools applied to single mineral grains extracted from existing collections of glacial till will generate ?fingerprints? of East Antarctic outlet glaciers and West Antarctic till to refine paleo-ice flow models for the Ross Embayment during the last glacial maximum, older records from ANDRILL cores, and to assess IRD sources in the Southern Ocean. New provenance tracers will include a suite of geochronological methods that together provide greater insights into the orogenic and erosional history the region. This project will include U/Pb of detrital zircons, (U-Th)/He on a subset of the U/Pb dated zircons, as well as Ar-Ar of detrital hornblende, mica and feldspars. <br/><br/>Broader impacts: <br/>This research will train one M.S. student at IUPUI, a Ph.D. student at Columbia, and several undergraduates at both institutions. Graduate students involved in the project will be involved in mentoring undergraduate researchers. Incorporation of research discoveries will be brought into the classroom by providing concrete examples and exercises at the appropriate level. Licht and Columbia graduate student E. Pierce are developing outreach projects with local secondary school teachers to investigate the provenance of glacial materials in their local areas. The research will have broad applicability to many fields. | POLYGON((-177.982 -63.997,-149.64107 -63.997,-121.30014 -63.997,-92.95921 -63.997,-64.61828 -63.997,-36.27735 -63.997,-7.93642 -63.997,20.40451 -63.997,48.74544 -63.997,77.08637 -63.997,105.4273 -63.997,105.4273 -66.3324,105.4273 -68.6678,105.4273 -71.0032,105.4273 -73.3386,105.4273 -75.674,105.4273 -78.0094,105.4273 -80.3448,105.4273 -82.6802,105.4273 -85.0156,105.4273 -87.351,77.08637 -87.351,48.74544 -87.351,20.40451 -87.351,-7.93642 -87.351,-36.27735 -87.351,-64.61828 -87.351,-92.95921 -87.351,-121.30014 -87.351,-149.64107 -87.351,-177.982 -87.351,-177.982 -85.0156,-177.982 -82.6802,-177.982 -80.3448,-177.982 -78.0094,-177.982 -75.674,-177.982 -73.3386,-177.982 -71.0032,-177.982 -68.6678,-177.982 -66.3324,-177.982 -63.997)) | POINT(-36.27735 -75.674) | false | false | |||||||
Collaborative Research: Constraints on the last Ross Ice Sheet from Glacial Deposits in the Southern Transantarctic Mountains
|
0838615 |
2013-09-05 | Hall, Brenda | No dataset link provided | Stone/0838818 <br/><br/>This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). <br/><br/>This award supports a project to study the former thickness and retreat history of Shackleton and Beardmore Glaciers which flow through the Transantarctic Mountains (TAMs) into the southern Ross Sea. Lateral moraine deposits along the lower reaches of these major outlet glaciers will be mapped and dated and the results will help to date the LGM and constrain the thickness of ice where it left the Transantarctic Mountains and flowed into the Ross Sea. The intellectual merit of the project is that the results will allow scientists to distinguish between models of ice retreat, which have important implications for former ice configuration and dynamics, and to constrain the contribution from Ross Sea deglaciation to global sea level through the late Holocene. In addition, this will make a significant contribution to a better understanding of the magnitude and timing of postglacial sea-level change and the potential contribution of Antarctica to sea-level rise in future. The broader impacts of the project are that the work will help quantify changes in grounded ice volume since the LGM, improve understanding of the ice dynamics responsible, and examine their implications for future sea level change. The project will train future scientists through participation of two graduate students and undergraduates who will develop self-contained research projects. As in previous Antarctic projects, there will be interaction with K-12 students through classroom visits, web-based expedition journals, letters from the field, and discussions with teachers and will allow the project to be shared with a wide audience. This award has field work in Antarctica. | POLYGON((-177.13 -84.55,-177.074 -84.55,-177.018 -84.55,-176.962 -84.55,-176.906 -84.55,-176.85 -84.55,-176.794 -84.55,-176.738 -84.55,-176.682 -84.55,-176.626 -84.55,-176.57 -84.55,-176.57 -84.615,-176.57 -84.68,-176.57 -84.745,-176.57 -84.81,-176.57 -84.875,-176.57 -84.94,-176.57 -85.005,-176.57 -85.07,-176.57 -85.135,-176.57 -85.2,-176.626 -85.2,-176.682 -85.2,-176.738 -85.2,-176.794 -85.2,-176.85 -85.2,-176.906 -85.2,-176.962 -85.2,-177.018 -85.2,-177.074 -85.2,-177.13 -85.2,-177.13 -85.135,-177.13 -85.07,-177.13 -85.005,-177.13 -84.94,-177.13 -84.875,-177.13 -84.81,-177.13 -84.745,-177.13 -84.68,-177.13 -84.615,-177.13 -84.55)) | POINT(-176.85 -84.875) | false | false | |||||||
Transient and Rapid Glacial Motions, including Glacial Earthquakes
|
0739444 |
2013-01-16 | Rice, James; Platt, John; Suckale, Jenny; Perol, Thibaut; Tsai, Victor | No dataset link provided | Rice 0739444<br/><br/>This award supports a project to study the mode of formation and causes of glacial earthquakes. The paradigm for glacial flow has been that glaciers flow in a viscous manner, with major changes in the force balance occurring on the decade timescale or longer. The recent discovery of a number of even shorter timescale events has challenged this paradigm. In 2003, it was discovered that Whillans Ice Stream in West Antarctica displays stick-slip behavior on the 10-30 minute timescale, with ice stream speed increasing by a factor of 30 from already high speeds. In the past year, the minimum timescale has been pushed shorter by recognition that a class of recently discovered 50-second-long, magnitude-5 earthquakes are closely associated with changes in the force balance near the calving fronts of large outlet glaciers in both Greenland and East Antarctica. With no adequate theory existing to explain these relatively large earthquakes associated with outlet glaciers, we have begun to investigate the physical mechanisms that must be involved in allowing such a response in a system traditionally not thought capable of generating large variations in forces over timescales less than 100 seconds. The intellectual merit of the work is that large-amplitude, short-timescale variability of glaciers is an important mode of glacier dynamics that has not yet been understood from a first-principles physics perspective. The proposed research addresses this gap in understanding, tying together knowledge from numerous disciplines including glaciology, seismology and fault rupture dynamics, laboratory rock physics, granular flow, fracture mechanics, and hydrogeology. The broader impacts of the work are that there is societal as well as general scientific interest in the stability of the major ice sheets. However, without an understanding of the physical processes governing short time scale variability, it is unlikely that we will be able accurately predict the future of these ice sheets and their impact on sea level changes. The project will also contribute to the development and education of young scientists. | None | None | false | false | |||||||
IPY: Stability of Larsen C Ice Shelf in a Warming Climate
|
0732946 |
2012-10-03 | Steffen, Konrad |
|
This award supports a field experiment, with partners from Chile and the Netherlands, to determine the state of health and stability of Larsen C ice shelf in response to climate change. Significant glaciological and ecological changes are taking place in the Antarctic Peninsula in response to climate warming that is proceeding at 6 times the global average rate. Following the collapse of Larsen A ice shelf in 1995 and Larsen B in 2002, the outlet glaciers that nourished them with land ice accelerated massively, losing a disproportionate amount of ice to the ocean. Further south, the much larger Larsen C ice shelf is thinning and measurements collected over more than a decade suggest that it is doomed to break up. The intellectual merit of the project will be to contribute to the scientific knowledge of one of the Antarctic sectors where the most significant changes are taking place at present. The project is central to a cluster of International Polar Year activities in the Antarctic Peninsula. It will yield a legacy of international collaboration, instrument networking, education of young scientists, reference data and scientific analysis in a remote but globally relevant glaciological setting. The broader impacts of the project will be to address the contribution to sea level rise from Antarctica and to bring live monitoring of climate and ice dynamics in Antarctica to scientists, students, the non-specialized public, the press and the media via live web broadcasting of progress, data collection, visualization and analysis. Existing data will be combined with new measurements to assess what physical processes are controlling the weakening of the ice shelf, whether a break up is likely, and provide baseline data to quantify the consequences of a breakup. Field activities will include measurements using the Global Positioning System (GPS), installation of automatic weather stations (AWS), ground penetrating radar (GPR) measurements, collection of shallow firn cores and temperature measurements. These data will be used to characterize the dynamic response of the ice shelf to a variety of phenomena (oceanic tides, iceberg calving, ice-front retreat and rifting, time series of weather conditions, structural characteristics of the ice shelf and bottom melting regime, and the ability of firn to collect melt water and subsequently form water ponds that over-deepen and weaken the ice shelf). This effort will complement an analysis of remote sensing data, ice-shelf numerical models and control methods funded independently to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the ice shelf evolution in a changing climate. | None | None | false | false | |||||||
An Investigation into the Seismic Signatures Generated by Iceberg Calving and Rifting
|
0739769 |
2012-03-22 | Fricker, Helen |
|
This award supports a project to strengthen collaborations between the various research groups working on iceberg calving. Relatively little is known about the calving process, especially the physics that governs the initiation and propagation of fractures within the ice. This knowledge gap exists in part because of the diverse range in spatial and temporal scales associated with calving (ranging from less than one meter to over a hundred kilometers in length scale). It is becoming increasingly clear that to predict the future behavior of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and its contribution to sea level rise, it is necessary to improve our understanding of iceberg calving processes. Further challenges stem from difficulties in monitoring and quantifying short-time and spatial-scale processes associated with ice fracture, including increased fracturing events in ice shelves or outlet glaciers that may be a precursor to disintegration, retreat or increased calving rates. Coupled, these fundamental problems currently prohibit the inclusion of iceberg calving into numerical ice sheet models and hinder our ability to accurately forecast changes in sea level in response to climate change. Seismic data from four markedly different environmental regimes forms the basis of the proposed research, and researchers most familiar with the datasets will perform all analyses. Extracting the similarities and differences across the full breadth of calving processes embodies the core of the proposed work, combining and improving methods previously developed by each group. Techniques derived from solid Earth seismology, including waveform cross-correlation and clustering will be applied to each data set allowing quantitative process comparisons on a significantly higher level than previously possible. This project will derive catalogues of glaciologically produced seismic events; the events will then be located and categorized based on their location, waveform and waveform spectra both within individual environments and between regions. The intellectual merit of this work is that it will lead to a better understanding of iceberg calving and the teleconnections between seismic events and other geophysical processes around the globe. The broader impacts of this work are that it relates directly to socio-environmental impacts of global change and sea level rise. Strong collaborations will form as a result of this research, including bolstered collaborations between the glacier and ice sheet communities, as well as the glaciology and seismology communities. Outreach and public dissemination of findings will be driven by SIO's Visualization Center, and Birch Aquarium, hosting presentations devoted to the role of the cryosphere in global change. Time-lapse movies of recent changes at Columbia Glacier will be used to engage potential young scientists. A program of presentations outside the university setting to at-risk and gifted youth will be continued. This study will also involve undergraduates in analyses and interpretation and presentation of the seismic data assembled. The work will also support two junior scientists who will be supported by this project. | POLYGON((-57.22 74.58,-55.343 74.58,-53.466 74.58,-51.589 74.58,-49.712 74.58,-47.835 74.58,-45.958 74.58,-44.081 74.58,-42.204 74.58,-40.327 74.58,-38.45 74.58,-38.45 73.822,-38.45 73.064,-38.45 72.306,-38.45 71.548,-38.45 70.79,-38.45 70.032,-38.45 69.274,-38.45 68.516,-38.45 67.758,-38.45 67,-40.327 67,-42.204 67,-44.081 67,-45.958 67,-47.835 67,-49.712 67,-51.589 67,-53.466 67,-55.343 67,-57.22 67,-57.22 67.758,-57.22 68.516,-57.22 69.274,-57.22 70.032,-57.22 70.79,-57.22 71.548,-57.22 72.306,-57.22 73.064,-57.22 73.822,-57.22 74.58)) | POINT(72.8836975 -69.008701) | false | false | |||||||
Collaborative Research:Grounding-line Retreat in the Southern Ross Sea - Constraints from Scott Glacier
|
0636818 |
2011-08-05 | Stone, John; Conway, Howard | No dataset link provided | Hall/0636687<br/><br/>This award supports a project to investigate late Pleistocene and Holocene changes in Scott Glacier, a key outlet glacier that flows directly into the Ross Sea just west of the present-day West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) grounding line. The overarching goals are to understand changes in WAIS configuration in the Ross Sea sector at and since the last glacial maximum (LGM) and to determine whether Holocene retreat observed in the Ross Embayment has ended or if it is still ongoing. To address these goals, moraine and drift sequences associated with Scott Glacier will be mapped and dated and ice thickness, surface velocity and surface mass balance will be measured to constrain an ice-flow model of the glacier. This model will be used to help interpret the dated geologic sequences. The intellectual merit of the project relates to gaining a better understanding of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and how changing activity of fast-flowing outlet glaciers and ice streams exerts strong control on the mass balance of the ice sheet. Previous work suggests that grounding-line retreat in the Ross Sea continued into the late Holocene and left open the possibility of ongoing deglaciation as part of a long-term trend. Results from Reedy Glacier, an outlet glacier just behind the grounding line, suggest that retreat may have slowed substantially over the past 2000 years and perhaps even stopped. By coupling the work on Scott Glacier with recent data from Reedy Glacier, the grounding-line position will be bracketed and it should be possible to establish whether the retreat has truly ended or if it is ongoing. The broader impacts of the work relate to the societal relevance of an improved understanding of the West Antarctic ice sheet to establish how it will respond to current and possible future environmental changes. The work addresses this key goal of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Initiative, as well as the International Polar Year focus on ice sheet history and dynamics. The work will develop future scientists through the education and training of one undergraduate and two Ph.D. students, interaction with K-12 students through classroom visits, web-based 'expedition' journals, letters from the field, and discussions with teachers. Results from this project will be posted with previous exposure dating results from Antarctica, on the University of Washington Cosmogenic Nuclide Lab website, which also provides information about chemical procedures and calculation methods to other scientists working with cosmogenic nuclides. | POLYGON((-157 -85,-156 -85,-155 -85,-154 -85,-153 -85,-152 -85,-151 -85,-150 -85,-149 -85,-148 -85,-147 -85,-147 -85.3,-147 -85.6,-147 -85.9,-147 -86.2,-147 -86.5,-147 -86.8,-147 -87.1,-147 -87.4,-147 -87.7,-147 -88,-148 -88,-149 -88,-150 -88,-151 -88,-152 -88,-153 -88,-154 -88,-155 -88,-156 -88,-157 -88,-157 -87.7,-157 -87.4,-157 -87.1,-157 -86.8,-157 -86.5,-157 -86.2,-157 -85.9,-157 -85.6,-157 -85.3,-157 -85)) | POINT(-152 -86.5) | false | false | |||||||
Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS)
|
0424589 |
2011-06-01 | Braaten, David; Joughin, Ian; Steig, Eric J.; Das, Sarah; Paden, John; Gogineni, Prasad | This award is for the continuation of the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), an NSF Science and Technology Center (STC) established in June 2005 to study present and probable future contributions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to sea-level rise. The Center?s vision is to understand and predict the role of polar ice sheets in sea level change. In particular, the Center?s mission is to develop technologies, to conduct field investigations, to compile data to understand why many outlet glaciers and ice streams are changing rapidly, and to develop models that explain and predict ice sheet response to climate change. The Center?s mission is also to educate and train a diverse population of graduate and undergraduate students in Center-related disciplines and to encourage K-12 students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM-fields). The long-term goals are to perform a four-dimensional characterization (space and time) of rapidly changing ice-sheet regions, develop diagnostic and predictive ice-sheet models, and contribute to future assessments of sea level change in a warming climate. In the first five years, significant progress was made in developing, testing and optimizing innovative sensors and platforms and completing a major aircraft campaign, which included sounding the channel under Jakobshavn Isbræ. In the second five years, research will focus on the interpretation of integrated data from a suite of sensors to understand the physical processes causing changes and the subsequent development and validation of models. Information about CReSIS can be found at http://www.cresis.ku.edu.<br/><br/>The intellectual merits of the STC are the multidisciplinary research it enables its faculty, staff and students to pursue, as well as the broad education and training opportunities it provides to students at all levels. During the first phase, the Center provided scientists and engineers with a collaborative research environment and the opportunity to interact, enabling the development of high-sensitivity radars integrated with several airborne platforms and innovative seismic instruments. Also, the Center successfully collected data on ice thickness and bed conditions, key variables in the study of ice dynamics and the development of models, for three major fast-flowing glaciers in Greenland. During the second phase, the Center will collect additional data over targeted sites in areas undergoing rapid changes; process, analyze and interpret collected data; and develop advanced process-oriented and ice sheet models to predict future behavior. The Center will continue to provide a rich environment for multidisciplinary education and mentoring for undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows, as well as for conducting K-12 education and public outreach. The broader impacts of the Center stem from addressing a global environmental problem with critical societal implications, providing a forum for citizens and policymakers to become informed about climate change issues, training the next generation of scientists and engineers to serve the nation, encouraging underrepresented students to pursue careers in STEM-related fields, and transferring new technologies to industry. Students involved in the Center find an intellectually stimulating atmosphere where collaboration between disciplines is the norm and exposure to a wide variety of methodologies and scientific issues enriches their educational experience. The next generation of researchers should reflect the diversity of our society; the Center will therefore continue its work with ECSU to conduct outreach and educational programs that attract minority students to careers in science and technology. The Center has also established a new partnership with ADMI that supports faculty and student exchanges at the national level and provides expanded opportunities for students and faculty to be involved in Center-related research and education activities. These, and other collaborations, will provide broader opportunities to encourage underrepresented students to pursue STEM careers. <br/><br/>As lead institution, The University of Kansas (KU) provides overall direction and management, as well as expertise in radar and remote sensing, Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and modeling and interpretation of data. Five partner institutions and a DOE laboratory play critical roles in the STC. The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) continues to participate in technology development for seismic measurements, field activities, and modeling. The Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing, Education and Research (CERSER) at Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) contributes its expertise to analyzing satellite data and generating high-level data products. ECSU also brings to the Center their extensive experience in mentoring and educating traditionally under-represented students. ADMI, the Association of Computer and Information Science/Engineering Departments at Minority Institutions, expands the program?s reach to underrepresented groups at the national level. Indiana University (IU) provides world-class expertise in CI and high-performance computing to address challenges in data management, processing, distribution and archival, as well as high-performance modeling requirements. The University of Washington (UW) provides expertise in satellite observations of ice sheets and process-oriented interpretation and model development. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) contributes in the area of ice sheet modeling. All partner institutions are actively involved in the analysis and interpretation of observational and numerical data sets. | POLYGON((-137 -74,-132.1 -74,-127.2 -74,-122.3 -74,-117.4 -74,-112.5 -74,-107.6 -74,-102.7 -74,-97.8 -74,-92.9 -74,-88 -74,-88 -74.65,-88 -75.3,-88 -75.95,-88 -76.6,-88 -77.25,-88 -77.9,-88 -78.55,-88 -79.2,-88 -79.85,-88 -80.5,-92.9 -80.5,-97.8 -80.5,-102.7 -80.5,-107.6 -80.5,-112.5 -80.5,-117.4 -80.5,-122.3 -80.5,-127.2 -80.5,-132.1 -80.5,-137 -80.5,-137 -79.85,-137 -79.2,-137 -78.55,-137 -77.9,-137 -77.25,-137 -76.6,-137 -75.95,-137 -75.3,-137 -74.65,-137 -74)) | POINT(-112.5 -77.25) | false | false | ||||||||
Radar Studies of Internal Stratigraphy and Bed Topography along the US ITASE-II Traverse
|
0440304 |
2009-01-13 | Jacobel, Robert |
|
This award supports a project to perform ice radar studies of bedrock topography and internal layers along the second US ITASE traverse corridor extending from Taylor Dome to South Pole on the inland side of the Transantarctic Mountains. The radar will provide information immediately available in the field on ice thickness and internal layer structure to help in the selection of core sites as the traverse proceeds. These data will also be useful in locating additional radar and surface studies to characterize the drainage divides between major outlet glaciers flowing through the mountains and possible changes in them through time. Information from the radar on bed roughness and basal reflectivity, together with images of internal layer deformation will enable us to study changes in the character of ice flow as tributaries merge to trunk flow and velocities increase. Areas where wind scour and sublimation have brought old ice close to the surface will be investigated. Based on our results from the first ITASE traverse, it is also likely that there will be findings of opportunity, phenomena we have not anticipated that are revealed by the radar as the result of a discovery-based traverse. The interdisciplinary science goals of US ITASE are designed to accommodate a variety of interactive research programs and data collected are available to a broad scientific community. US ITASE also supports an extensive program of public outreach and the education and training of future scientists will be central to all activities of this proposal. St. Olaf College is an undergraduate liberal arts institution that emphasizes student participation in scientific research. This award supports two undergraduate students as well as a research associate and a graduate student who will be part of the US ITASE field team. | None | None | false | false | |||||||
Mass Balance and Accumulation Rate Along US ITASE Routes
|
0196441 |
2006-03-30 | Hamilton, Gordon S. | Not Available | None | None | false | false |