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北方维多利亚地几个无冰区的冰川沉积物和冰川变化的日期变化。这些数据将限制流入罗斯海西北部的主要冰川过去冰厚度变化的性质和时间。这一点很重要，因为在末次盛冰期（15，000 - 18，000年前），这些冰川很可能与来自东南极冰盖和西南极冰盖的地面冰一起流动，这些冰盖跨越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到罗斯海冰盖和冰架的范围和厚度的控制。PI建议收集的数据可以提供对末次冰盛期罗斯海西部接地线位置的限制，到达该位置的时间以及之后发生的冰厚度变化。该项目的主要智力价值将是提高对南极冰盖历史时期的认识，这一时期目前相对不受限制，对了解过去冰盖-海平面相互作用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计划，该计划正在建立一个社会经济多样化的学生团体，其中来自地球科学背景的学生人数不足。这一提议还将使一名早期职业研究人员进入南极研究。

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.