We have two fantastic speakers for the January 2022 EON seminar – details below along with the Teams link at the bottom
1. Alex Burton-Johnson (British Antarctic Survey): Applications of Satellite Remote Sensing to Antarctic Geology
Abstract: Remote, environmentally hostile, and logistically challenging, Antarctica is an ideal target for remote sensing solutions to scientific problems. This talk presents the various recent applications of satellite remote sensing to Antarctic geological research at the British Antarctic Survey. Differentiating snow and rock from multispectral imagery is surprisingly challenging, but deriving the first automated and accurate map of Antarctica’s rock distribution allowed accurate geological mapping and quantification of just how much of Antarctica is snow-covered. Multispectral and hyperspectral imagery provide the tantalising prospect of taking this further, remotely mapping the lithological distribution of the continent. Even the temperature of the remote sub-Antarctic volcanic islands can be probed from space. This talk highlights the varied and continuing applications of earth observation, and the potency of open access data distribution.
2. James Kirkham (British Antarctic Survey/University of Cambridge – Scott Polar Research Institute): Marine geophysical records of ice sheet deglaciation
Abstract: The movement of water beneath glaciers and ice sheets exerts an important control on how these features flow and will respond to climate change in the future. However, the basal environment of ice sheets is highly inaccessible, and consequently many processes that are critical to predicting the future of contemporary ice sheets remain poorly understood. In this talk, cutting-edge high-resolution 3D seismic data, originally collected by the geohazard assessment industry, is used to examine the basal plumbing system of a huge ice sheet complex that repeatedly covered the United Kingdom and Western Europe hundreds of thousands of years ago. Using these data, we examine the morphology, infill, and origin of a series of massive channels — called tunnel valleys — formed by water flowing beneath this ice sheet complex as it deglaciated. The resolution of our seismic data (6.25 m bin size, ~4 m vertical resolution) represents an order of magnitude improvement in the data resolution that has previously been used to study tunnel valleys in this region, allowing us to examine their origin in unprecedented detail. The observations resolve a century-old debate surrounding the genesis of tunnel valleys and provide analogues for how the contemporary Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will respond in a warming world.
Please e-mail Neil Jennings if you would like to receive the calendar invite for this event.