Collaborative Research: Last Glacial Maximum and Deglaciation Chronology for the Foundation Ice Stream and Southeastern Weddell Sea Embayment

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)提供资金的。该奖项支持一个项目，该项目旨在寻找彭萨科拉山脉过去冰缘位置的地质证据并确定其日期，彭萨科拉山脉与韦德尔海海湾顶部的基础冰流接壤。该项目将涉及冰川地质测绘和冰川运输异常冰川的宇宙成因核素表面暴露年代测定。冰流模型将被用来以冰川学一致的方式将我们的暴露年代测定结果联系在一起，并将它们与区域LGM和全新世海拔变化联系起来。该项目的第二个重点是提高暴露测年方法在了解冰盖变化方面的有效性。冰缘位置的变化，以及记录这些变化的暴露年龄，不仅受到区域冰盖物质平衡的控制，还受到与暴露年代测定地点相邻的雪和冰原的局部影响的控制。该项目的这一部分将把目前冰缘附近的冰川观测与有针对性的暴露年龄采样结合起来，以努力更好地了解控制冰缘位置的过程，并改进对最近暴露年龄数据的解释，将其解释为呈现冰盖变化的最新全新世的记录。该项目的学术价值在于，它将提供南极地区从大冰川到全新世冰量变化的直接地质证据，而目前尚不存在此类证据。这项工作的更广泛影响包括收集准确了解过去和现在全球海平面变化所需的信息。其次，该项目将帮助开发和保持在极地研究和全球变化教育方面持续卓越所需的人力和智力资源，将有经验的南极研究人员与寻求在研究和教育方面发展其专业知识的早期职业科学家联系起来。此外，它还将两名早期职业科学家聚集在一起，他们的职业生涯集中在研究-教育领域的相反两端，从而促进了研究和教育在这些科学家的职业生涯和本项目成果中更好地结合起来。这一奖项在南极洲进行了实地考察。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). This award supports a project to find and date geologic evidence of past ice-marginal positions in the Pensacola Mountains, which border the Foundation Ice Stream at the head of the Weddell Sea embayment. The project will involve glacial geologic mapping and cosmogenic-nuclide surface exposure dating of glacially transported erratics. An ice-flow model will be used to link our exposure-dating results together in a glaciologically consistent way, and to relate them to regional LGM to Holocene elevation changes. A secondary focus of the project seeks to improve the effectiveness of exposure-dating methods in understanding ice sheet change. Changes in the location of the ice margin, and thus the exposure ages that record these changes, are controlled not only by regional ice sheet mass balance, but also by local effects on snow- and icefields immediately adjacent to the exposure-dating sites. This part of the project will combine glaciological observations near the present ice margin with targeted exposure- age sampling in an effort to better understand the processes controlling the ice margin location, and improve the interpretation of very recent exposure-age data as a record of latest Holocene to present ice sheet changes. The intellectual merit of the project is that it will provide direct geologic evidence of LGM-to-Holocene ice volume change in a region of Antarctica where no such evidence now exists. The broader impacts of the work involve both gathering information needed for accurate understanding of past and present global sea level change. Secondly, this project will help to develop and maintain the human and intellectual resources necessary for continued excellence in polar research and global change education, by linking experienced Antarctic researchers with early career scientists who seek to develop their expertise in both research and education. In addition, it brings together two early career scientists whose careers are focused at opposite ends of the research-education spectrum, thus facilitating better integration of research and education both in the careers of these scientists and in the outcome of this project. This award has field work in Antarctica.