COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Terrestrial Exposure-Age Constraints on the last Glacial Maximum Extent of the Antarctic Ice Sheet in the Western Ross Sea

研究人员将绘制南极洲维多利亚州北部几个无冰区的冰川沉积和冰川变化的日期变化图。这些数据将限制流入罗斯海西北部的主要冰川过去冰层厚度变化的性质和时间。这一点很重要，因为在最后一次冰川盛期(15,000-18,000年前)，这些冰川很可能与来自南极东部和西部冰盖的接地冰一起流动，这些冰盖穿过罗斯海大陆架扩展到现在的大陆架边缘附近。因此，这些冰川的厚度很可能部分受制于罗斯海冰盖和冰架的范围和厚度。PIS建议收集的数据可以提供关于上一次冰盛期罗斯海西部接地线位置、达到该位置的时间以及之后发生的冰层厚度变化的限制。该项目的主要学术价值将是增进对南极冰盖历史的理解，这段历史目前相对不受限制，对理解过去的冰盖-海平面相互作用也可能具有重要意义。这项建议将支持一名早期职业研究人员正在进行的本科教育和研究计划，该计划正在建立一个社会经济多元化的学生群体，其学生的背景在地球科学中的代表性较低。这项提议还将把一名早期职业研究人员带入南极研究。

The investigators will map glacial deposits and date variations in glacier variability at several ice-free regions in northern Victoria Land, Antarctica. These data will constrain the nature and timing of past ice thickness changes for major glaciers that drain into the northwestern Ross Sea. This is important because during the Last Glacial Maximum (15,000 - 18,000 years ago) these glaciers were most likely flowing together with grounded ice from both the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheets that expanded across the Ross Sea continental shelf to near the present shelf edge. Thus, the thickness of these glaciers was most likely controlled in part by the extent and thickness of the Ross Sea ice sheet and ice shelf. The data the PIs propose to collect can provide constraints on the position of the grounding line in the western Ross Sea during the Last Glacial Maximum, the time that position was reached, and ice thickness changes that occurred after that time. The primary intellectual merit of this project will be to improve understanding of a period of Antarctic ice sheet history that is relatively unconstrained at present and also potentially important in understanding past ice sheet-sea level interactions. This proposal will support an early career researcher's ongoing program of undergraduate education and research that is building a socio-economically diverse student body with students from backgrounds underrepresented in the geosciences. This proposal will also bring an early career researcher into Antarctic research.