Abstract:
This project determines the recent history of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) through a multidisciplinary study of the seabed in the Ross Sea of Antarctica. WAIS is perhaps the world's most critical ice sheet to sea level rise due to near-future global warming. Its history has been a key focus for the past decade, but there are significant questions as to whether WAIS was stable during the
... last glacial maximum--about 20,000 years ago--or undergoing advance and retreat. This project studies grounding zone translations in Eastern Basin to constrain WAIS movements using a multidisciplinary approach that integrates multibeam bathymetry, seismic stratigraphy, sedimentology, diatom biostratigraphy, radiocarbon dating, 10Be concentration analyses, and numerical modeling. The broader impacts include improving society's understanding of sea level rise linked to global warming; postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate education; and expanding the participation of groups underrepresented in Earth sciences through links with LSU's Geoscience Alliance to Encourage Minority Participation. 
