Source-to-sink dynamics and palaeo-environment reconstruction from a dynamically evolving glacial foreland

动态演化的冰川前陆的源-汇动态和古环境重建

• 批准号: 2440300
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Queen's University Belfast
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2440300
• 关键词: Source; sink; dynamics; palaeo; environment

"The pathways of glacial meltwater, from surface ablation through to proglacial discharge, are a key component in understanding the role of hydrology and its influence on glacier dynamics. The trajectory and volume of this meltwater can have both long- and short-term impacts on ice velocity, which in turn play an important role in glacier mass balance regimes. This project will investigate the Breidameryokull ('Breida") glacier and its foreland in Iceland. This is a glacier that is currently experiencing rapid ice margin retreat that is well-captured in satellite records. This provides an excellent opportunity for documenting how subglacial meltwater systems transition into proglacial systems and what processes dominate during this evolution. In this project the student will be exposed to a suite of geological and geophysical methods to understand how the glacier has evolved in the past and what relevance this might have to understanding ongoing and future environmental changes. Sedimentary cores collected from a proglacial lake at Breida will be utilised in unison with the mapping of landform records that will be integrated with repeated ground-penetrating radar surveys that will be calibrated against sedimentological records. Combining these methods and considering the source-to-sink dynamics of the glacial system will provide the student with a holistic understanding of environmental changes in the study area, with the potential to upscale this understanding to other ice masses currently experiencing increases in surface meltwater production, such as analogous outlet glaciers in Greenland. This record will allow a comparison between historical and contemporary changes. These changes can be considered together to refine our understanding of different glaciological and geomorphological processes that evolve during ice margin retreat as well as the impact of an adjacent tidally-influenced water body. Such observations are crucial for helping to calibrate and test numerical Earth-system models that seek to project the implications of future environmental change in glacierised settings brought about by rising global air and ocean temperatures.The project will provide training opportunities in sediment analysis, geophysics and remote sensing applied to an accessible location. Interest in glacial processes with regard to climate change has never been greater, such that this work will have high research impact applicable to the study location and beyond."

“冰川融水的路径，从表面消融到冰前放电，是理解水文作用及其对冰川动力学影响的关键组成部分。这种融水的轨迹和体积可以对冰速产生长期和短期的影响，这反过来又在冰川质量平衡制度中发挥重要作用。该项目将调查冰岛的Breidameryokull（“Breida”）冰川及其前陆。这是一个冰川，目前正在经历快速的冰缘退缩，这是很好地捕捉到卫星记录。这提供了一个很好的机会，记录冰下融水系统如何过渡到冰前系统，什么过程中占主导地位的演变。在这个项目中，学生将接触到一套地质和地球物理方法，以了解冰川在过去是如何演变的，以及这可能与理解正在进行的和未来的环境变化有什么相关性。从Breida的一个冰前湖收集的沉积岩芯将与地形记录绘图结合使用，地形记录绘图将与反复进行的地面穿透雷达测量结合使用，雷达测量将根据沉积记录进行校准。结合这些方法并考虑冰川系统的源-汇动态，将为学生提供对研究区域环境变化的全面了解，并有可能将这种了解扩大到目前正在经历表面融水生产增加的其他冰块，例如格陵兰岛的类似出口冰川。这一记录将有助于比较历史和当代的变化。这些变化可以被认为是在一起，以完善我们的理解不同的冰川和地貌过程中演变的冰缘退缩，以及相邻的潮汐影响水体的影响。此类观测对于帮助校准和测试地球系统数值模型至关重要，这些模型旨在预测全球空气和海洋温度上升所带来的冰川环境中未来环境变化的影响。该项目将提供沉积物分析、地球物理学和遥感方面的培训机会应用于可访问的地点。对冰川过程与气候变化的兴趣从未如此之大，因此这项工作将对研究地点及其他地区产生很高的研究影响。"