Collaborative Research: Systematic Analysis of Landscape Evolution and Surface Ages in Transantarctic Mountains

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。拟议的项目将调查跨南极山脉最寒冷和最干燥的部分（尼姆罗德冰川的翁谷和阿蒙森冰川的冰碛峡谷），人们认为，由于现代环境中缺乏流水和生物活动，这些地方的景观得以保持数百万年，基本上没有变化。与这种普遍的看法相反，有人假设地貌确实在演变，也许与干旱山谷地区的许多表面一样快，在过去的几百万年里，松散的土壤和基岩表面都以大约1-2米/百万年的速度退化。该研究小组将依靠对积累在近地表土壤和基岩中的稳定和放射性宇宙成因同位素的分析。总的来说，这些测量可以比较长期的景观演变，目前的过程和环境驱动因素，如风速。这项工作的成果将增进对地球表面演变的了解，并直接有助于评价火星地貌图像。对学生的持续依赖为这项拟议的研究提供了更广泛的影响，并在其教育使命中坚定地支持这项努力。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). The proposed project will investigate the coldest and driest parts of the Transantarctic Mountains (Ong Valley at Nimrod Glacier and Moraine Canyon at Amundsen Glacier) where the lack of running water and biological activity in the modern environment is thought to have preserved the landscape, essentially unchanged, for millions of years. Contrary to this common belief, it is hypothesized that the landscape does evolve, perhaps as fast as many surfaces in the Dry Valleys area where both loose soil and bedrock surfaces have been degrading at a rate of about 1-2 m/Myrs for the past several million years. The research team will rely on analysis of the both stable and radioactive cosmogenic isotopes that accumulate in near surface soil and bedrock. Collectively these measurements allow comparison of the long term landscape evolution to current processes and environmental drivers such as wind speed. The results of this work will improve understanding of the evolution of the Earth's surface and directly aid in evaluating imagery of Martian geomorphology. Continued reliance on students provides a broader impact to this proposed research and firmly grounds this effort in its educational mission.