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SUMMARY:Sub ice volcanism\, ice sheets and global change - Prof John Smell
 ie\, University of Leicester
DTSTART:20120502T153000Z
DTEND:20120502T163000Z
UID:TALK34004@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Steven Palmer
DESCRIPTION:Other than in response to mitigating the impacts of modern eru
 ptions (e.g. Eyjafjallajökull (Iceland) in 2010)\, the products of volcan
 ism are generally neglected in environmental studies. This is also true fo
 r studies of palaeoenvironments\, where volcanism is not often considered 
 a first line of attack. However\, Antarctica is host to numerous volcanoes
  that were constructed over the past 25 million years. They were erupted i
 n association with a coeval ice sheet\, and Antarctica contains the world
 ’s largest and longest-lived glaciovolcanic province. Glaciovolcanic stu
 dies have advanced out of all recognition over the past 10 years and they 
 are now a major new proxy methodology that can yield a much wider and more
  quantitative range of critical parameters of past ice sheets than any oth
 er palaeoenvironmental methodology. They provide a unique ultra-proximal t
 errestrial record of equal importance to results of more distally situated
  higher-resolution marine sedimentary studies\, which are obtained by offs
 hore drilling at a substantially higher cost. Historically\, glaciovolcani
 c sequences provided the earliest evidence for a pre-Quaternary ice sheet 
 in Antarctica\, and subglacial volcano(es) might today be influencing ice 
 sheet stability by lubricating sensitive parts of the West Antarctic Ice S
 heet. This talk will use examples of selected mature studies of Antarctic 
 glaciovolcanism to demonstrate how they are at last beginning to be used t
 o reconstruct parts of the Neogene Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) in far greate
 r detail than was previously possible. Critical parameters that can be rou
 tinely deduced include basal thermal regime and (uniquely) ice thickness\,
  knowledge of which is a fundamental prerequisite for making accurate esti
 mates of past ice volumes and showing how those volumes fluctuated with ti
 me. Studies such as these are important in assessing the stability of the 
 AIS under the current phase of climate warming\, and ultimately to calcula
 te much more reliably the possible impacts on eustasy. Thus glaciovolcanic
  investigations in Antarctica are likely to make major contributions to ou
 r understanding of the global impact of the world’s largest & longest-li
 ved ice sheet.
LOCATION:Scott Polar Research Institute\, main lecture theatre
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