Investigating the controls on the extent of tidewater glaciers. This project aims to improve our ability to model tidewater glaciers. The project will conduct studies of two iconic glacial systems in Alaska: Glacier Bay and Columbia Glacier. These glaciers have recently experienced rapid retreat and contributed to sea level rise. In particular, the Grand Pacific Glacier has retreated 100 kilometres up Glacier Bay, the greatest recorded glacier retreat in the last 200 years. The project will use ....Investigating the controls on the extent of tidewater glaciers. This project aims to improve our ability to model tidewater glaciers. The project will conduct studies of two iconic glacial systems in Alaska: Glacier Bay and Columbia Glacier. These glaciers have recently experienced rapid retreat and contributed to sea level rise. In particular, the Grand Pacific Glacier has retreated 100 kilometres up Glacier Bay, the greatest recorded glacier retreat in the last 200 years. The project will use geomorphic mapping, dating and climate reanalysis to better understand the long term behaviour of these glaciers and the drivers of recent retreat. An expected outcome from the project is a better understanding of the long term behaviour of tidewater glaciers and an improvement in our ability to predict sea level rise from them.Read moreRead less
Breaking Gondwana: interplay between tectonics, climate and resources. The project aims to reconstruct 250 million years of landscape evolution in response to rifting and break-up of the Gondwana supercontinent, using the innovative approach of combining regional thermochronology with global plate tectonic models. From these reconstructions, the time-integrated record of exhumation and erosion at the continental margins will be revealed at an unprecedented scale. The main expected outcome will b ....Breaking Gondwana: interplay between tectonics, climate and resources. The project aims to reconstruct 250 million years of landscape evolution in response to rifting and break-up of the Gondwana supercontinent, using the innovative approach of combining regional thermochronology with global plate tectonic models. From these reconstructions, the time-integrated record of exhumation and erosion at the continental margins will be revealed at an unprecedented scale. The main expected outcome will be a deep time archive of the relationships between tectonic forcing, continental erosion and the global climate, which may assist predictions and debate on future climate change. The outcomes will also provide economic benefits as they will inform on the exhumation and preservation of (critical) mineral resources.Read moreRead less
Is there a climatic tipping point for Antarctic Bottom Water formation? Antarctic Bottom Water plays an important role in global ocean circulation and climate and yet its formation is also highly sensitive to climate change. This project will analyse new seafloor, core and water samples from the understudied Cape Darnley, East Antarctica, collected on a voyage in early 2022. This new data will be used in combination with an improved high resolution regional ocean model, to understand modern and ....Is there a climatic tipping point for Antarctic Bottom Water formation? Antarctic Bottom Water plays an important role in global ocean circulation and climate and yet its formation is also highly sensitive to climate change. This project will analyse new seafloor, core and water samples from the understudied Cape Darnley, East Antarctica, collected on a voyage in early 2022. This new data will be used in combination with an improved high resolution regional ocean model, to understand modern and past Antarctic Bottom Water formation under different climate states (warmer and colder than present), to determine if there are climate tipping points for the shut down of Antarctic Bottom Water formation. The anticipated benefits include a better understanding of future climate change on this important water mass.Read moreRead less