Using marine sediment cores containing isotopes of aluminum and beryllium, a group of international researchers has discovered that East Greenland experienced deep, ongoing glacial erosion over the past 7.5 million years.
The research reconstructs ice sheet erosion dynamics in that region during the past 7.5 million years and has potential implications for how much the ice sheet will respond to future interglacial warming.
The team, made up of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of Vermont, Boston College and Imperial College London, analyzed sediments eroded from the continent and deposited in the ocean off the coast, which are like a time capsule preserving records of glacial processes. The research appears in the Dec. 8 edition of the journal, Nature.
Using marine sediment cores containing isotopes of aluminum and beryllium, a group of international researchers has discovered that East Greenland experienced deep, ongoing glacial erosion over the past 7.5 million years.
The research reconstructs ice sheet erosion dynamics in that region during the past 7.5 million years and has potential implications for how much the ice sheet will respond to future interglacial warming.
The team, made up of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of Vermont, Boston College and Imperial College London, analyzed sediments eroded from the continent and deposited in the ocean off the coast, which are like a time capsule preserving records of glacial processes. The research appears in the Dec. 8 edition of the journal, Nature.
Understanding of early Greenland glaciation remains fragmentary, uncertain and for some periods, contradictory; much of what is known comes from marine sediments. The first presence of ice-rafted debris suggests that East Greenland glaciers initially reached the coast about 7.5 million years ago, whereas the surface texture of the sand grains suggests that glaciation began 11 million years ago.
"The East Greenland ice sheet has been dynamic over the last 7.5 million years," said lead author and University of Vermont scientist Paul Bierman. "Greenland was mostly ice-covered during the mid-to-late Pleistocene. At major climate transitions, the ice sheet expanded into previously ice-free terrain, confirming that the East Greenland Ice Sheet consistently responded to global climate change."
Continue reading at DOE / Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Photo Credit: Joshua Brown / University of Vermont
