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

研究人员将绘制冰川沉积物图，并确定南极洲维多利亚地北部几个无冰地区冰川变化的日期。这些数据将限制流入罗斯海西北部的主要冰川过去冰厚变化的性质和时间。这一点很重要，因为在末次盛冰期（15,000 - 18,000年前），这些冰川很可能与南极东部和西部冰原的冰一起流动，这些冰原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在一定程度上受到罗斯海冰盖和冰架的范围和厚度的控制。PIs建议收集的数据可以提供末次盛冰期罗斯海西部接地线的位置、到达该位置的时间以及在此之后发生的冰厚变化的约束。这个项目的主要知识价值将是提高对目前相对不受限制的南极冰盖历史时期的理解，并且在理解过去冰盖-海平面相互作用方面也具有潜在的重要意义。该提案将支持早期职业研究人员正在进行的本科教育和研究项目，该项目正在建立一个社会经济多元化的学生群体，其中包括来自地球科学背景不足的学生。这一提议还将为南极研究带来一位早期的职业研究员。

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.