The Antarctic Peninsula is undergoing greater warming than almost anywhere on Earth and the Peninsula's Larsen Ice Shelf, the third largest ice shelf in Antarctica, has experienced catastrophic decay since the mid 1990s. Hamilton College geology professor Eugene Domack has been awarded $851,941 from the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs for a collaborative research project to study the Paleohistory of the Larsen Ice Shelf.
The three-year project, with three field seasons in Antarctica, is a multi-institutional, international effort* that combines a variety of disciplines and integrates research with educational opportunities for primarily undergraduate institutions. Three Hamilton students, as well as students from other collaborating institutions including Colgate University, will be participating in a research trip to the Antarctic Peninsula from April 15 - May 10. For more on the expedition, go to www.hamilton.edu/antarctica.
Domack, who has taken more than 60 undergraduates to Antarctica since 1987, described the current research project, "We will test the hypothesis that the Larsen B Ice Shelf system has been a stable component since it formed during the rising sea levels 10,000 years ago. This conclusion, if supported by observations from our proposed work, is an important first step in establishing the uniqueness and consequences of rapid regional warming currently taking place across the Peninsula."
This research addresses fundamental questions about the response of the Antarctic Peninsula to modern warming. Domack said, "Our proposed work contributes to understanding of these changes -- where they are occurring first and with greatest magnitude and impact upon the environment."
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*Collaborators on the project include researchers from Hamilton College; Colgate University; Montclair State University; Queens University in Kingston, Ontario; Southern Illinois University at Carbondale; Earth and Space Research, a non-profit institute; Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale - OGS, Trieste, Italy; and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
