Proposal-Writing Time

The fieldwork is done and now the time comes for the next phase of the process… proposal writing! This summer, I spent the month of July in Thule, northwestern Greenland (you can access my older posts here). I sampled large, glacially-transported boulders for cosmogenic dating as well as marine shells for radiocarbon dating. Now, my task is to obtain the funds to support the analytical costs of processing and measuring the samples.

View towards Wolstenholme Fjord and North Ice Cap in Thule. A spectacular area!

The goal of this work is to unravel the landscape history of the Thule area. In particular, I am interested in how this complex landscape has evolved over both space and time. After spending three field seasons in Thule, I’ve had ample opportunity to observe the landscape and have identified two different units of glacial sediment that are in separate, but adjacent, areas. For each of these sedimentary units, I will explore the following questions:

1.) How old are the sediments? Were they deposited during the most recent glacial period, or are they a product of an older glaciation?

2.) What is the surface history of the sediments? How long have they been exposed, and do they record times of burial by non-erosive glacial ice?

3.) How erosive was the glacial ice that covered the landscape? Was it an effective agent of change, or was it non-erosive and capable of preserving a relict surface?

4.) What body of glacial ice deposited the sediments? Were they deposited by the Greenland Ice Sheet or by a small outlet glacier during a subsequent re-advance?

A gorgeous (and very large) glacial moraine near Thule. How old was the ice advance that deposited this moraine?? Hopefully I’ll be able to answer that question later this year!

Through my exploration of these questions, I will address not only the history of the Thule area, but also fundamental questions about the landscape evolution processes at play. Because the area around Thule is complex both spatially and temporally, it provides an ideal opportunity to study a wide range of processes that drive landscape evolution at high latitudes.

The process of writing this proposal has been a very valuable learning experience for me. It has encouraged me to think about the larger significance of my work; in essence, taking my work from a “postage stamp” project (i.e. one that addresses a small, specific area) to a larger and more relevant project addressing ideas that are widely transferable to other areas.

I look forwards to learning more about high-latitude landscape evolution over the coming year!

Panoramic view across the Thule landscape, looking towards Wolstenholme Fjord (photo courtesy of my fabulous field assistant Everett Lasher).

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Science in Greenland: It’s a Girl Thing

During the 2012 IGERT Field Seminar in Greenland, the all-female cohort 3 was introduced to this promotional video, put out by the European Commission as a part of a campaign to inspire more young women to get involved in science.

The controversial video has since been taken off the European Commission campaign website, but not before sparking some lively debate.  The discussion in Greenland amongst cohort 3 about the video and the role of women in science inspired us to make our own version of Science: It’s a girl thing!.

And so we proudly present:  Science in Greenland: It’s a Girl Thing

What do you think about the European Commission video and our take on women in science?  Despite the controversy surrounding the video, the European Commission has a really cool website for their Science: It’s a girl thing!  campaign.  Check it out: http://science-girl-thing.eu/en.

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Tour de Arctic Lakes

Kangerlussuaq is peppered with lakes and ponds, extending all the way up to the ice margin. There are many interesting questions to be answered with regard to these lakes – for example, what are the nutrient inputs? How does the water chemistry vary between each? What is the community composition of aquatic plant and animal life? And how might all of the above parameters be influenced by the surrounding vegetation and geology?

Setting up to take water, sediment, and plankton samples. Photo courtesy C. Vario.

The crew finds sea tomatoes settled all over the lake sediment. Photo courtesy C. Vario.

To get at some of these questions, Ali, Chelsea, Stephanie and I headed into the field one last time before leaving Greenland. Together, we sampled four lakes between the town of Kangerlussuaq and the ice margin. These lakes are especially interesting because of the orange, spherical balls inhabiting them, known locally as sea tomatoes. These fascinating organisms are a species of colonial cyanobacteria belonging to the genus Nostoc. Lakes here are highly variable in their abundances of sea tomatoes, with some having no visible colonies, and others supporting hundreds to thousands of colonies.

High density sea tomato lake.

Sea tomatoes vary in size, with large colonies reaching the size of a softball.

To capture this density gradient, we sampled lakes at four different sea tomato densities, ranging from no visible colonies, to high abundance (estimated to be thousands of colonies). At each lake, we took samples of (1) whole lake water, (2) lake sediment, (3) zooplankton and phytoplankton, and (4) the sea tomatoes.

Steph tosses the plankton net into the lake to capture zooplankton. Photo courtesy C. Vario.

Back in the lab, I hope to use these samples to better understand the occurrence and distribution of sea tomatoes, including: what are some of the limits to sea tomato dispersal? Lakes with few to no visible sea tomatoes are often situated next to lakes teeming with them; what limits their movement and establishment to certain lakes, but not others? Do high versus low sea tomato lakes show differences in water and sediment nutrient levels? Many species of cyanobacteria, including other species of Nostoc, produce toxins, but we don’t yet know whether or to what extent sea tomatoes in these lakes are releasing toxins into the system. Further, examining the zooplankton will allow us to ask additional questions about the movement of the toxins through the food web and more generally, about the composition of these arctic lake communities.

Steph and Jess inspect the fresh plankton net catch. Photo courtesy C. Vario.

Lively zooplankton dart around the sample jar after being caught in the plankton net. Photo courtesy C. Vario.

*Look for updates soon on what we are now learning from these samples!*

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