The Icebound project aims to reconstruct the ice sheet geometry and its age of the last glaciation. The datasets will provide for better atmospheric general circulation models that are used to predict future climate change. Right now the scientists are working in Northwestern Spitsbergen.

Text: Anne Hormes, UNIS Associate Professor in Quaternary geology

Sun, calm days, cold wind, snowstorm, whiteout and clear visibility, a polar bear visit in Austbotnhytta, the best chocolate cake of Svalbard in Austfjordneset – you can have it all on a geological research expedition to Austfjorden.

I and Ph.D. student Endre Før Gjermundsen have been studying different glacial history features for 10 days in Austfjorden for the Icebound project. Icebound is a joint research project between UNIS and AWI-IPEV in Ny-Ålesund. This project aims to reconstruct the ice sheet geometry and its age of the last glaciation.

Important for future climate models
You might wonder why this is of importance for our society. The reconstruction of the geometry of the last glacial ice sheet is the first step to reconstruct the timing of the freshwater input into the Arctic Ocean in the Svalbard region at the end of the last glaciation. This is important information because atmospheric general circulation models that are used to predict future climate change are tested against abrupt climate change scenarios in the past.

In connection with the Icebound-project, the scientists spent 10 days in Austfjorden in April. (Photo: Endre Før Gjermundsen).

The abrupt climate change at the end of the last glaciation is an important test period for these models. The data of the last glaciation ice sheet geometry are in general taken from models that were developed in the 1980s and 1990s (Denton and Hughes, 1981; Peltier, 1994).

With the Icebound project we aim to generate a new three dimensional ice sheet model at least for Svalbard. For the Ph.D thesis of Endre Før Gjermundsen we will investigate two key regions, central Spitsbergen and NW Spitsbergen, during the next three years. We will map the glacial extension of the ice sheet in the field and compile and supplement point field data with satellite image analysis.

Improved dating method
The beauty of the project is the use of a dating method that offers new avenues in glacial geology studies and one that has been only developed throughout the last 15 years: cosmogenic nuclide dating. With this method we are able to analyse how long a glacial erratic boulder has been released from the glacier ice and exposed to the atmosphere without any coverage. Cosmogenic nuclides 10Be, 26Al and 36Cl are produced in the upper surface of an exposed rock due to the bombardment of the Earth’s surface by cosmic rays as soon as the glacier melted away and the boulder was released from its icebound.

The CN method has been used previously in one research project on Svalbard supporting ice-free areas in the NW of the archipelago (Landvik et al., 2003). I have used the method on Nordaustlandet last year and I have received the first results of this exciting dating method that offers us the possibility to get data from the inner parts of Spitsbergen, where often material that could be used for other dating methods is absent.

Ongoing field work in the Northwest
From mid April until mid May the Icebound project is at work in NW Spitsbergen. The UNIS team is supplemented with two field assistants; Helge Kåsin and Bjørn Andre Skæret. We have our tent camp on Staxrudfonna south of Krålene mountains and work in the region between Magdalenenfjorden, Raudfjorden and Liefdefjorden. We hope for exciting results in order to constrain the timing of the decay of the last ice sheet in a better way in order to improve boundary conditions of climate models.

Read more about the project at www.icebound.no

Read the blog from the ongoing field activity: http://blogg.nrk.no/rastlos/

Associate professor Anne Hormes at work in Austfjorden in April. The Icebound project will provide useful data which can be used in climate models to better predict future climate changes. (Photo: Endre Før Gjermundsen).