Reconstructing subglacial meltwater outbursts
As an undergraduate at Rice University, I collaborated with Prof. John Anderson and Dr. Alexandra Witus to learn about the history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet using evidence that remains on the continental shelf of the Amundsen Sea. We examined both the geomorphology of the shelf and sediment characteristics to infer the rapid release of fresh water from the subglacial environment during the last deglaciation. The sediments carried by these buoyant fresh water plumes may play an important role in fertilizing the Southern Ocean and promoting primary productivity there.
This work is published in Quaternary Science Reviews, doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.11.021. Figure (right) shows a core from Pine Island Bay. Unit 1 records several episodes fresh water discharge from the Pine Island - Thwaites Glacier system between 8,600 and 7,000 years ago. This figure is published in Witus et al. (2014), see link above. |
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