12.753 | Spring 2006 | Graduate

Geodynamics Seminar

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SES # SPEAKERS TOPICS
1 Dr. Richard Alley, Penn State University, Department of Geosciences Ice Rules: Ice Cores and Ice Ages
2 Dr. Sridhar Anandakrishnan, Penn State University, Department of Geosciences There is a Tide in the Affairs of Men…and Glaciers
3 Dr. John Wettlaufer, Yale University, Department of Physics The Many Faces of the Surface of Ice
4 Dr. Ian Joughin, University of Washington, Polar Science Center Polar Remote Sensing
5 Dr. Christina Hulbe, Portland State University, Department of Geology Ice Sheet Modeling
6 Dr. Meredith Nettles, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Glacial Earthquakes
7 Dr. Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University, Byrd Polar Research Center Tropical Glaciers
8 Dr. John Priscu, Montana State University, Dept. of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences Extremophiles, Subglacial Life
9 Dr. Bruce Jakosky, University of Colorado at Boulder, Center for Astrobiology Planetary Ice
10 Dr. Erland Schulson, Dartmouth College, Ice Research Laboratory On the Mechanical Behavior of Ice with Emphasis on Brittle Failure
11 Dr. Paul Hoffman, Harvard University, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Snowball Earth
12 Dr. Richard Williams, U.S. Geological Survey, Woods Hole Global Ice
13 Dr. Helgi Björnsson, University of Iceland, Raunvísindastofnin Háskólans Science Institute Subglacial Volcanism
14 Dr. Sidney Hemming, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Ice Bergs, Ice Shelves, Heinrich Events
15 Dr. Kelly MacGregor, Macalester College, Department of Geology Ice Erosion and Tectonics

More pictures from this trip are available on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution site.

Joint Program students enrolled in the Geodynamics seminar are required to complete a project for the class. This includes research, an oral presentation during the last two or three seminar meetings, and a written paper due at the end of the semester. For first and second year students, the project must be on a topic related to the theme of the seminar and must be different from their main research interest. For more advanced students, the topic may be closely related to their dissertation research.

The following topics are suggested as potential student projects (advisor listed in bold):

Karen Bice

What Does it Take to Ice the Earth?

Using a global climate model, explore the range of system boundary conditions that would produce a Neoproterozoic “snowball Earth.”

Sarah Das and Mark Behn

Water-Filled Fracture Propagation in Ice

A significant question in ice sheet dynamics is how and under what conditions the surface meltwater can penetrate to the bed of the ice sheet causing a dynamic response. Recent studies suggest that climate variability can induce rapid changes in ice sheet behavior. These timescales (1-10 years) are much too short for thermal diffusion to be important and suggest that water is rapidly supplied to the bed via water-filled cracks. This project would combine observation and theoretical constraints to better understand the initiation, propagation, and duration of fluid-filled cracks in subfreezing ice.

Jerry McManus and Delia Oppo

Icebergs! Drifting ice is geologically ephemeral, yet icebergs may play important roles as climatic indicators and even as agents of climate change through their influence on ocean circulation. Projects are available in two very different geographic and climatic settings:

The North Atlantic

During the last ice age, catastrophic iceberg discharges from North America choked much of the Atlantic, drifting south to the subtropics and east to the Iberian margin, and leaving a trail of characteristic debris on the seafloor. Icebergs also advanced episodically from other locations, including Iceland and the British Isles, with distinctive isotopic and petrologic signatures. The relative timing and magnitude of these discharges provide clues that may resolve whether the events were driven by regionally coherent climate change or by ice sheet dynamics influenced by the disparate basal conditions of the respective ice caps. Abundant icebergs were generally associated with the coldest conditions within the ice age, and it is hypothesized that the freshwater from the melting bergs acted to diminish the ocean’s climatically important overturning circulation, thus providing a positive cooling feedback. Student projects may focus on geochemical, radiochemical, petrologic and/or sedimentological aspects of iceberg discharges and their oceanographic and climatic impacts.

The South Pacific

Prior to the last ice age, the world was generally slightly warmer than today, with sufficiently less global ice so that sea level was several meters higher. The Earth then descended into one of the most extreme glacial episodes of the last quarter billion years. This is the last time an interglacial interval such as the one we live in gave way to a new ice age, and although the transition to glaciation is widely believed to have been paced by insolation, it was not monotonic or globally synchronous. Several lines of evidence suggest that cooling occurred rapidly, and that the Southern hemisphere led the way, in contrast with the North Atlantic, which remained warm as ice sheets began to grow. The Andean glaciers of western South America are sensitive indicators of climate change, and debris from the icebergs that result when the glaciers reach the sea has the potential to serve as an indicator of glacial inception. Using sediments from the Chilean margin, a comparison of ice-rafted debris and the planktonic oxygen isotope indicator of meltwater can be made in the same core with the benthic oxygen isotope record of global glaciation to determine whether cooling over South America preceded that of the North Atlantic.

Laurent Montési

Rifting on Ganymede

Bright terrain on Ganymede, an icy satellite of Jupiter, displays regularly spaced faults and longer-wavelength topographic undulations. These length scales of deformation can be used to constrain the thermal structure of the icy shell. In this project, you will use existing Finite Element codes to produce synthetic fault patterns and relate rift morphology with ice properties.

Glacier Seismic Cycle

Shridar Anandakrishnan showed to us how the different dynamics of glacier b and d in Antarctica may relate to the frictional properties of the basal interface. We will build more realistic 2-layer spring-slider models for the b glacier considering a velocity-weakening surface (the frozen bed) over either a velocity strengthening or viscous surface (the till).

Jack Whitehead

Wax Experiments and Lava Tubes

We have developed a laboratory experiment using liquid wax as a model of a lava tube. The idea is to learn to estimate how far lava can travel through solid material within a tube before freezing. There are also drainage tubes of water within glaciers with similar dynamics. Existing theories of lava tubes usually involve a pre-selected radius for the tube. The calculations do a good job finding the flow profiles and pressure drop for various lava rheologies. However, the radius of an actual lava tube is a free parameter that is somehow selected in a balance between melting, flow rate, temperature and other parameters. Moreover, the distance of travel is in some sense a free parameter too. I want to understand their selection processes. Thus, we have made an experiment where the size of a “tube” of melted wax is a result of the experiment instead of an imposed variable.

A disk of aluminum at a fixed temperature was carefully leveled so that its central axis was vertical. Above this disk was a thin air gap and above the gap was a polycarbonate lid. An experimental wax (1-hexadecene) was injected at steady rate through a central hole with the aluminum below the freezing point. The wax spread out and as time progresses formed a sequence of frozen fans in the gap. After the gap became filled with these fans, the wax forced the lid upward and flowed out under the lid as a uniformly diverging radial sheet flow. Suddenly, a drainage channel formed in the ambient wax extending from the central hole to the outside rim of the cylinder. All of the flow became accommodated by the channel and the thin sheet-flow layer froze. Then, the flow became steady and drainage could continue indefinitely with this steady flow. We don’t have a very good theory predicting the width of this channel yet, but the size of the channel gets smaller as pumping rate is reduced. Caleb Mills performed measurements of the size last year. Now, we would like to see two things. First, more clearly whether there is a minimum flow rate, which would result in a frozen channel if reduced. No minimum is reported yet, but one would think that a very sufficiently small flow would not supply enough heat to counteract conductive cooling. Second, we have a hollow cylinder with cooled walls. Wax inside this would be more like a tube and we would like to try and form one.

SPEAKERS READINGS FOR DISCUSSION READINGS FOR REFERENCE
Dr. Richard Alley

Alley, Richard. “Abrupt Climate Changes: Oceans, Ice, and Us.” Oceanography 17, no. 4 (December 2004): 194-204.

Schrag, D. P., and R. B. Alley. “Ancient Lessons for Our Future Climate.” Science 306 (October 29, 2004): 821-822.

Alley, R., P. U. Clark, P. Huybrechts, and I. Joughin. “Ice-Sheet and Sea-Level Changes.” Science 310 (October 21, 2005): 456-460.

 
Dr. Sridhar Anandakrishnan

Anandakrishnan, S., D. E. Voigt, and R. B. Alley. “Ice Stream D Flow Speed is Strongly Modulated by the Tide Beneath the Ross Ice Shelf.” Geophysical Research Letters 30, no. 0 (2003): 1361. doi: 10.1029/2002GL016329.

Bindschadler, Robert A., Matt A King, Richard B Alley, and Sridhar Anandakrishnan. “Tidally Controlled Stick-slip Discharge of a West Antarctic Ice Stream.” Science 301, no. 5636 (August 22, 2003): Research Library Core p. 1087.

Alley, R. B., S. Anandakrishnan, T. K. Dupont, and B. R. Parizek. “Ice Streams-Fast, and Faster?” Department of Geosciences and EMS Environment Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, Deike Building, University Park, PA 16802.

Doake, C. S. M., H. F. J. Corr, K. W. Nicholls, A. Gaffikin, and A. Jenkins. “Tide-induced Lateral Movement of Brunt Ice Shelf, Antarctica. Geophysical Research Letters 29, no. 8 (2002) 1226, 10.1029/2001GL014606.

 
Dr. John S. Wettlaufer Dash, J. G., A.W. Rempel, and J. S. Wettlaufer. “The Physics of Permelted Ice and its Geophysical Consequences.” Rev Mod Phys In Press (February 16, 2006): 1- 48. Tsemekhman, V., and J. S. Wettlaufer. “Singularities, Shocks, and Instabilities in Interface Growth.” Studies In Applied Mathematics 110 (2003): 221-256 by MIT.
Dr. Ian Joughin

Joughin, Ian, and Slawek Tulaczyk. “Positive Mass Balance of the Ross Ice Streams, West Antarctica.” Science 295 (January 18, 2002): 476-480.

Joughin, Ian, Waleed Abdalati, and Mark Fahnestock. “Large Fluctuations in Speed on Greenland’s Jakobshavn Isbræ Glacier.” Nature 432 (December 2, 2004): 608-610.

 
Dr. Christina Hulbe

Hulbe, Christina L., Douglas R. MacAyeal, George H. Denton, Johan Kleman, and Thomas V. Lowell. “Catastrophic Ice Shelf Breakup as the Source of Heinrich Event Icebergs.” Paleoceanography 19 (2004) PA1004, doi: 10.1029/2003PA000890.

Scambos, Ted, Christina Hulbe, and Mark Fahnestock. “Climate-Induced Ice Shelf Disintegration In The Antarctic Peninsula.” Paleobiology and Paleoenvironments of Eoscene Rocks-Antarctic Research Series 76 (2003): 335-347. Copyright 2003 by the American Geophysical Union.

 
Dr. Meredith Nettles Ekstrom, Goran, Meredith Nettles, and Victor C. Tsai. “Seasonality and Increasing Frequency of Greenland Glacial Earthquakes.” Accepted for Science (January 9, 2006).

Ekstrom, Goran, Meredith Nettles, and Geoffrey A. Abers. “Glacial Earthquakes.” Science 302 (October 24, 2003).

Dr. Lonnie Thompson

Thompson, Lonnie G., Mary E. Davis, Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Ping-Nan Lin, Keith A. Henderson, and Tracy A. Mashiotta. “Tropical Ice Core Records: Evidence for Asynchronous Glaciation on Milankovitch Timescales.” Journal of Quaternary Science 20, nos. 7-8 (2005): 723-733.

———. “Tropical Glacier and Ice Core Evidence of Climate Change on Annual to Millennial Time Scales.” Climatic Change 59 (2003): 137-155.

Thompson, L. G., E. Mosley-Thompson, M. E. Davis, K. A. Henderson, H. H. Brecher, V. S. Zagorodnov, T. A. Mashiotta, P-N. Lin, V. N. Mikhalenko, D. R. Hardy and J. Beer. “Kilimanjaro Ice Core Records: Evidence of Holocene Climate Change in Tropical Africa.” Science 298 (2002): 589-593.

Byrd Polar Research Center
Dr. John Priscu

Priscu, J. C., and B. C. Christner. Earth’s icy biosphere. In “Microbial Diversity and Bioprospecting.” Edited by A. Bull. Chapter 13. Washington, DC: ASM Press, 2004, pp. 130-145.

Priscu, John C., Christian H. Fritsen, Edward E. Adams, Stephen J. Giovannoni, Hans W. Paerl, Christopher P. McKay, Peter T. Doran, Douglas A. Gordon, Brian D. Lanoil, and James L. Pinckney. “Perennial Antarctic Lake Ice: An Oasis for Life in a Polar Desert.” Science 280 (June 26, 1998).

Priscu, John C., Edward E. Adams, W. Berry Lyons, Mary A. Voytek, David W. Mogk, Robert L. Brown, Christopher P. McKay, Cristina D. Takacs, Kathy A.. Welch, Craig F. Wolf, Julie D. Kirshtein, and Recep Avci. “Geomicrobiology of Subglacial Ice Above Lake Vostok, Antarctica.” Science 286 (December 10, 1999).

Priscu Research Group

The McMurdo Dry Valley Lakes Microbial Observatory

Priscu, John C., Brent C. Christner, Christine M. Foreman, and George Royston-Bishop. “Biological Material in Ice Cores.” Revision Submitted to Encyclopedia of Quaternary Sciences (January 3, 2006).

Doran, Peter T., Christian H. Fritsen, Christopher P. McKay, John C. Priscu, and Edward E. Adams. “Formation and Character of an Ancient 19-m Ice Cover and Underlying Trapped Brine in an “Ice-sealed” East Antarctic Lake.” PNAS 100, no. 1 (January 7, 2003): 26-31.

Siegert, Martin J., J. Cynan Ellis-Evans, Martyn Tranter, Christoph Mayer, Jean-Robert Petit, Andrey Salamatink, and John C. Priscu. “Physical, Chemical and Biological Processes in Lake Vostok and Other Antarctic Subglacial Lakes.” Nature 414 (December 6, 2001).

Priscu, J. C., M. C. Kennicutt II, R. E. Bell, S. A. Bulat, J. C. Ellis-Evans,V. V. Lukin, J.-R. Petit, R. D. Powell, M. J. Siegert, and I. Tabacco. “Exploring Subglacial Antarctic Lake Environments.” EOS 86, no. 20 (May 17, 2005).

Dr. Richie Williams

Overpeck, Jonathan T., Bette L. Otto-Bliesner, Gifford H. Miller, Daniel R. Muhs, Richard B. Alley, and Jeffrey T. Kiehl. “Paleoclimatic Evidence for Future Ice-sheet Instability and Rapid Sea-level Rise.” Science 311, no. 5768 (2006): 1747-1750.
[Note: The Science issue that contains the this paper also focuses on “Climate Change. Breaking the Ice” as a theme, with other papers and an editorial]

ACIA: Impacts of a warming Arctic, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 139.

Shuman, C. A., H. J. Zwally, B. E. Schutz, A. C. Brenner, J. P. DiMarzio, V. P. Suchdeo, and H. A. Fricker. “ICESat Antarctic Elevation Data: Preliminary Precision and Accuracy Assessment.” Geophysical Research Letters 33 (2006), L07501, doi: 10.1029/2005GL025227.

USGS Glacier Studies Project Web site.

Includes URL addresses for many publications related to glaciers. Seven of the 11 Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World (USGS Professional Paper 1386 A-K) are included as.pdf documents: Antarctica, Greenland, Glaciers of Europe, Glaciers of the Middle East and Africa, Glaciers of Irian Jaya, Indonesia, and New Zealand, Glaciers of South America, and Glaciers of North America [excluding Alaska (1386-K) which is next to be published].

Recent Relevant Books

Symon, C., lead editor, Arris, L., and Heal, B., eds. Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 1,042.
[The science behind the assessment, encapsulated in the summary given above.

Bamber, J. L, and A. J. Payne, eds. Mass Balance of the Cryosphere. Observations and Modeling of Contemporary and Future Changes. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 644.
[Includes many important papers on changes in the cryosphere.]

Flannery, Tim. The Weather Makers. How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth. New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005, p. 357.

The above will give the participants a start of a rapidly expanding focus of the scientific community on changes in the cryosphere, including glaciers, snow cover, floating ice (sea, lake, and river), and permafrost and periglacial environments, all of which will be addressed in my presentation next week, with emphasis on glaciers.

Dr. Erland Schulson

Schulson, Erland M. “Brittle Failure of Ice.” Engineering Fracture Mechanics 68 (2001): 1839-1887.

———. “The Fracture of Water Ice Ih: A Short Overview.” Meteoritics and Planetary Science (April 2006) (In press).

 
Dr. Paul Hoffman

Hoffman, Paul F., and Daniel P. Schrag. “The Snowball Earth Hypothesis: Testing the Limits of Global Change.” Terra Nova 14, no. 3 (2002): 129-155.

Pollard, David, and James F. Kasting. “Snowball Earth: A Thin-ice Solution with Flowing Sea Glaciers.” Journal of Geophysical Research 110 (2005), C07010, doi: 10.1029/2004JC002525.

Donnadieu, Yannick, Frederic Fluteau, Gilles Ramstein, Catherine Ritz, and Jean Besse. “Is There a Conflict Between the Neoproterozoic Glacial Deposits and the Snowball Earth Interpretation: An Improved Understanding with Numerical Modeling.” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 208 (2003): 101-112.

 
Dr. Helgi Björnsson

Flowers, Gwenn E., Helgi Björnsson, and Finnur Palsson. “A Coupled Sheet-conduit Mechanism for Jokulhlaup Propagation.” Geophysical Research Letters, DOI:10.1029/, Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union.

Björnsson, Helgi, and Pall Einarsson. “Volcanoes Beneath Vatnajokull, Iceland: Evidence from Radio Echo-sounding Earthquakes and Jokulhlaups. Jokull, no. 40 (1990).

Björnsson, Helgi, Finnur Palsson, and Magnus T. Guomundsson. “Surface and Bedrock Topography of the Myrdalsjokull Ice Cap.” Jokull, no. 49.

Björnsson, Helgi. “Subglacial Lakes and Jokulhlaups in Iceland.” Global and Planetary Change 35 (2002): 255-271.

 
Dr. Sidney Hemming Hemming, Sidney R. “Heinrich Events: Massive Late Pleistocene Detritus Layers Of The North Atlantic and Their Global Climate Imprint.” Review of Geophysics 42 (2004): RG1005.  

Detailed Iceland Trip Guide (PDF)

Meet at Logan Airport, Icelandair ticket counter @ 7:00 PM
Depart BOS 9:30 PM Icelandair flight

Day 1

Arrive Keflavík International Airport 6:30 AM (flight duration 5 hours)
Pick up 2 vans, 2 trailers (Budget)
Free day in Reykjavík
Night @ Laugardalur campground, Reykjavík
Dinner: on own in town

Day 2

Late start due to trailer problems (2 hrs @ AVIS)
To Þingvellir N.P., then north to Hvalfjörður fjord, stop at Skorradalsvatn
Night @ Sæberg Hostel (1 km. off Rte 1 in Hrútafjörður, west side of road)
[Identifying information removed]
Dinner: mexican-style chicken (Rachel, Trish, Chris)

Distance: 270 Km

Day 3

To Lake Myvatn
Lunch stop in Akureyri, stop at Godafoss, stop at Skutustadir pseudocraters
Night @ Ferdathjonustan Bjarg campsite, Reykjahlid, on shore of Lake Myvatn
[Identifying information removed]
Dinner: salmon, fettucini alfredo (Henry and Hans)

Distance: 320 Km

Day 4

Day in the Lake Myvatn, Krafla area
Night @ Ferdathjonustan Bjarg campsite, Reykjahlid
Dinner: chicken curry, lentils, veggies (Andrew, Matt, Chris)

Distance: 60 Km

Day 5

South to Hofn
Lunch above river in Egilsstadir park (along road to Reydarfjodur?)
Drive through 5.9 km Faskrudsfjördur road tunnel (shortened trip by 35 km)
Night @ Hofn hostel (address: Hafnarbraut 8, in town)
[Identifying information removed]

(This is Sjómannadagurinn, a national holiday honoring seafarers)
Dinner: Tortellini (Casey, Sharon)

Distance: 440 Km

Day 6

Drive to Skaftafell N. P.
We broke into 2 groups for the day:
[south to Skaftafell, stops at Jökulsárlón, Kviarjokull]
[north to Austurhorn to see magma mixing]
Lunch at [Jökulsárlón] and [broke into cabin along the highway]
Night @ N.P. campground and Bolti Farmhouse
[Identifying information removed]
(This is Whit Monday, a bank holiday)
Dinner: marinated lamb, ratatouille (Hans and Henry)

Distance: 130 Km

Day 7

Day in Skaftafell N. P., Svartifoss, Sel, other hikes
Night @ N.P. campground and Bolti Farmhouse
Dinner: sweet potato and black bean chili (Emily, Michael, Peter)

Distance: 0 Km

Day 8

Drive southern Rim Road to Keflavík,
lunch at tourist stop near Vik, stop at Sólheimajökull (14 km dirt road)
Dinner: cookout hosted by friends of Matt Jackson, near Keflavík
Night @ Njardvik hostel, in industrial strip along highway, 4 km to KEF

Distance: 360 Km

Day 9

Rekjanes Peninsula, lunch at Rekjanesta
Returning to Keflavík Airport; Return vans, trailers
Depart Keflavík 5:00 PM
Arrive BOS 6:35 PM (flight duration 5:35 hrs)

Distance: 50 Km

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

Seminar Topic: ICE!

In this year’s Geodynamics Seminar, we will explore the depth and breadth of scientific research related to Earth’s present and past ice-sheets, glaciers and sea-ice, as well as extraterrestrial planetary ice.

Invited speakers have been chosen from experts in the current frontiers in ice-related research, including planetary ice, climate records from polar and tropical ice cores, the Snowball Earth, subglacial volcanoes, ice rheology, ice sheet modeling, ice microkinetics, glacial erosion and tectonics, subglacial life and polar remote sensing.

A field trip to Iceland in Summer 2006 will allow us to view some of the island’s ice caps and glacial geology, the exposed mid Atlantic Ridge and evidence of ice-volcano interactions.

This Year’s Seminar Organizers

Karen Bice
Sarah Das
Mark Behn
Andrew Daly

Grading

Joint Program students enrolled in the Geodynamics seminar are required to complete a project for the class. This includes research, an oral presentation during the last two or three seminar meetings, and a written paper due at the end of the semester. For first and second year students, the project must be on a topic related to the theme of the seminar and must be different from their main research interest. For more advanced students, the topic may be closely related to their dissertation research.

Course Info

Learning Resource Types
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Projects