Collaborative Research: A place-based, student-led research project in the Pioneer Mountains, Montana: an investigation of very dry, alpine glaciation proximal to the Laurentide Ic

该项目将包括当地的地球科学学生和以经验为基础的、以地点为基础的教育方法，以重建蒙大拿州西南部先锋山脉的冰川历史。该项目将使蒙大拿州西部大学的第一代、代表性不足的大学生沉浸在气候研究中。学生们将与美国国家科学基金会支持的佛蒙特大学社区宇宙设施合作，研究该地区的冰川历史。研究人员将检验这样一种假设，即冰川位于大冰盖附近，经历了寒冷的温度和异常低的降水量，可能比劳伦蒂德(即加拿大)冰盖最大值(约21,000年前)早得多。他们将通过对先锋山脉的冰川冰川进行采样和年代测定来实现这一点，由于大陆分水岭沿线的山脉阻挡，今天的降雨量非常低。来自先锋山脉的冰川冰川序列可能会对山脉冰川对地球长期轨道波动和随之而来的气候变化做出反应的机制有新的理解。这个以地点为基础的研究项目将为本科生提供一个身临其境的机会，他们中的许多人来自蒙大拿州的农村，他们将有机会更好地了解他们所在州的景观，形成这些景观的地貌过程，以及他们提供的重要气候信息。这项研究将为深入了解劳伦德冰盖(LIS)附近大陆气候区域最后一次冰川进退期间的冰川进退提供洞察，该地区位于一条异常干燥的山脉中，那里的冰川年代学尚未得到研究。先锋山脉是蒙大拿州西部为数不多的被花岗岩覆盖的山脉之一，这使得使用石英中的10Be来确定宇宙成因核素暴露年龄是可行的，从而产生了该地区第一个冰河年代学。研究人员将测试在伊利诺伊州东部和怀俄明州西北部发现的最大冰期的差异是否是由于区域气候差异，例如由LIS的存在驱动的反气旋风型或非气候因素(例如，高度测量和响应时间)。随着LIS的发展，这种大气压力系统将使西风海洋水汽通量偏离落基山脉北部，因此先驱者中的冰川极大可能先于LIS极大和前述冰川系统。这项工作的结果将促进对极端干燥和非常寒冷条件下依赖温度的冰川的理解，为世界上最冷、最干燥地区的当前冰川可能如何应对现代气候变暖提供洞察。该项目由地貌学和土地利用动态计划(GLD)和既定的激励竞争研究计划(EPSCoR)联合资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will incorporate local geoscience students and an experiential, place-based educational approach to reconstruct the glacial history of the Pioneer Mountains in southwest Montana. This project will immerse first-generation, under-represented college students at the University of Montana Western in climate research. Students will investigate the region’s glacial history in collaboration with the NSF-supported Community Cosmogenic Facility at University of Vermont. The investigators will test the hypothesis that glaciers, located near large ice sheets and experience both cold temperatures and exceptionally low precipitation, may have reached local ice extent maximums considerably earlier than the Laurentide (i.e., Canadian) Ice Sheet maximum (~21,000 years ago). They will do this by sampling and dating glacier moraines in the Pioneer Mountains, which today have very low precipitation due to blocking by ranges along the Continental Divide. Glacier moraine sequences from the Pioneer Mountains may shed new understanding into the mechanisms by which mountain glaciers respond to Earth’s long-term orbital fluctuations and concomitant climatic changes. This place-based research project will provide the undergraduate students, many of whom are from rural Montana, with an immersive opportunity to better understand their own states’ landscapes, the geomorphic processes that formed them, and the important climatic information they provide.This research will provide insight into glacier advance and retreat during the last glaciation in continental climatic regions that were proximal to the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS), in an exceptionally dry mountain range where the glacial chronology has not been studied. The Pioneer Mountains are one of the few ranges in western Montana underlain by granite, making it feasible to use 10Be in quartz for cosmogenic nuclide exposure ages and thus produce the first moraine chronologies for the region. The investigators will test whether the differences in maximum-ice times found in eastern ID and northwestern WY are due to regional climatic contrasts, such as anticyclonic wind patterns driven by the presence of the LIS or non-climatic factors (e.g., hypsometry and response time). Such atmospheric pressure systems would deflect westerly maritime moisture flux away from the northern Rocky Mountains as the LIS developed, and therefore the glacier maxima in the Pioneers may precede the LIS maxima and the aforementioned glacier systems. Results from this work will advance the understanding of temperature-dependent glaciers under extremely dry and very cold conditions, providing insight about how current glaciers in the coldest, driest regions of the world may respond to modern climate warming. This project is jointly funded by the Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics Program (GLD) and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.