The Role of Frazil Ice and Anchor Ice in Sedimentation in Subpolar Glacial Marine Environments, Antarctica

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This award is for support of a one-year Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) to test an hypothesis that frazil ice and anchor ice form in glacial meltwater flowing into subpolar marine water and form deposits that may be distinguishable from deposits of temperate and polar glacial environments. The proposed study to search and document that frazil and anchor ice form at the termini of glaciers and play a role in sediment transport is high risk, but if successful, this study will have identified a significant new mechanism of sediment dispersal, thus leading the way to an increased understanding of ice-front processes in the Antarctic. The field-based study will consist of (1) video surveys with an ROV submersible to detect frazil and anchor ice and to study the glacier terminus, (2) CTD profiles, water samples and sediment traps to study processes of dispersal and sedimentation, and 3) bottom cores to document the record of these processes.