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ARCTIC Arctic Research Consortium of the United States Member Institution Winter 2004/2005, Volume 11 Number 2 Arctic Research at Oregon State University land grant university, Oregon State Geosciences A University was designated as Oregon’s state-assisted agricultural college in 1868. Polar Ice Cores Sea grant and space grant designation came Ed Brook (Geosciences) applies geochemical techniques to diverse problems in late Quater- later, making OSU one of only six universi- nary paleoclimatology; several of his projects have arctic components. NSF-supported work ties to have all three titles. OSU currently focused on the relative timing of millennial-scale abrupt climate change in Greenland and enrolls 15,599 undergraduate and 3,380 Antarctica uses atmospheric methane and the isotopic composition of oxygen as correlation graduate students in more than 200 under- tools to place climate records from the Siple Dome (west Antarctica) and GISP2 (Green- graduate and 80 graduate degree programs. land) ice cores on a precise common chronology for the period from 9–57 ka. The onset With collaborative connections across of major millennial warming events in Siple Dome precedes major abrupt warmings in the globe, OSU researchers contribute to Greenland, and the pattern of millennial change at Siple Dome is broadly similar, though arctic research from disciplines housed in not identical, to that previously observed for the Byrd ice core (also in west Antarctica). a variety of colleges. The College of Oce- The addition of Siple Dome to the database of well-dated Antarctic paleoclimate records anic and Atmospheric Sciences (COAS) supports the case for a regionally consistent pattern of millennial-scale climate change in has several researchers working on arctic Antarctica during the last ice age and glacial-interglacial transition. projects; OSU investigators in departments continued on next page as diverse as Anthropology, Geosciences, Fisheries and Wildlife, Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Chemistry, and Bio- engineering also focus on arctic research. With the growing recognition of the sig- nificance of change in the Arctic for the region and the world, the commitment to arctic research at OSU is expanding. This insert highlights recent accomplishments and current projects. For more information, contact: Kelly Kenison Falkner College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences Oregon State University 104 Ocean Administration Building Corvallis, OR 97331-5503 [email protected] Phone: 541-737-3625 Fax: 541-737-2064 http://oregonstate.edu Ed Brook (leaning on shovel) next to a trench through steeply dipping ice layers at the Younger Dryas/Holocene boundary (about 11.7 ka) at the margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet at Pakitsoq, near Ilulissat on the west Greenland coast. Photo by Jeff Severinghaus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Published by the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States • 3535 College Road • Suite 101 • Fairbanks, AK 99709 Oregon State University: ARCUS Member Institution With colleagues at the University of ciers produce the largest California, San Diego, and the Danish volume of sediment from Technical University, Brook is investigating their drainage basins of the feasibility of extracting large volumes any glaciers on the planet. of ancient air from old ice outcroppings at Andrew Meigs (Geosci- the Greenland Ice Sheet Margin. Obtain- ences), has been working ing air samples large enough to analyze on the general problem of carbon-14 in atmospheric methane could feedback between growth resolve a major argument about the role of of mountain belts, cli- seafloor methane hydrates in late Quater- mate, and erosion with nary climate change. Fieldwork at Pakitsoq, support from NSF and near Ilulissat on the west Greenland coast OSU. Working with (photo previous page), reveals that well- four graduate students, preserved trace gas records from ice margin two undergraduates, and sites are recoverable. Techniques for collect- colleagues at OSU and ing large (1–2 ton) ice samples and extract- Virginia Polytechnic OSU Geoscience graduate students Sarah Johnston (left) and Meghan Blair ing the air onsite were developed and Institute and State Uni- (right) in the northern Chugach Range, Alaska, working on sediment storage and employed in the summers of 2002, 2003, versity, Meigs has found evacuation in a 7-km long lake formed as Tana Glacier advanced across the outlet and 2004. Sample processing for stable car- that deformation and of Granite Creek. Photo courtesy A. Meigs. bon isotopes and carbon-14 is underway. erosion have been concentrated on the acterize surface roughness and reflectance windward, southern flank of the range, but anisotropy on the Greenland ice sheet. Dating Glacial Events that the rates are considerably lower on 105 With OSU student Dave Selkowitz, Nolin During the last glaciation, outlet glaciers yr and longer timescales than they are on is observing forest cover characteristics draining the Laurentide Ice Sheet through 102 yr and shorter scales. The discrepancy and snowpack dynamics under different the Torngat Mountains of northern Labra- in erosion rates in particular is apparently climate conditions, using MISR data to dor deposited a prominent moraine system, explained by a profound landscape and gla- simultaneously estimate snow-covered area which suggests that ice extent along the cier response to the shift from the Little Ice and vegetation density. With Jeff Dozier eastern Canadian seaboard was restricted. Age to the present climate beginning at the (University of California, Santa Barbara), The age of the moraines remained start of the 20th century. Glacial retraction Tom Painter (University of Colorado), and unknown, however, until Peter U. Clark throughout the landscape is responsible for others, Nolin is developing multi-resolu- and Ed Brook (both of the Department of a short-term, but enhanced, increase in the tion snow products for the hydrological Geosciences) applied cosmogenic nuclide rate of erosion over much of the mountain sciences, using MISR-derived estimates of exposure (CNE) dating to material from range. These observations are consistent vegetation density to improve estimates of the site. Funded by NSF, the new CNE with an emerging paradigm suggesting that snow-covered area. ages demonstrate that the moraines were landscape-scale geomorphic disequilibrium, deposited late during the last deglaciation, perpetuated by the switching between gla- Paleoceanography and possibly in association with the Younger cial and interglacial climates that character- Sedimentation Dryas cold reversal. ized the late Cenozoic, enhanced erosion In August and September 2004, an inter- Clark and Ph.D. student Anders Carl- rates globally throughout the Pleistocene. disciplinary team aboard the R/V Ewing, son, working with Gary Klinkhammer led by co-chief scientists Alan Mix (COAS) (COAS), are reconstructing the routing Remote Sensing of Snow and Ice and John Jaeger (University of Florida), of continental runoff that occurred with A member of the science team for NASA’s surveyed and sampled sites in Southeast fluctuations of the Laurentide Ice Sheet Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer Alaska fjords and open ocean to contribute margin. By analyzing the geochemistry (MISR), Anne Nolin (Geosciences) uses to two complementary projects funded by of foraminifera from sediment cores from multi-angle and multi-spectral sensors to NSF. With co-investigators Nick Pisias, Hudson Strait, the team hopes to identify improve techniques for mapping ice-sheet Fred Prahl, Joe Stoner (all of COAS), Larry geochemical signals associated with changes albedo, ice-sheet roughness, and snow- Mayer (University of New Hampshire), in surface water runoff that occurred as the covered locations with vegetation cover. Ellen Cowan (Appalachian State Univer- ice sheet over Hudson Strait retreated. Information from MISR measurements sity), Bruce Finney (University of Alaska over snow and ice contributes to a number Fairbanks), Sean Gulick (University of Glacial Erosion Rates of collaborative NASA-funded projects. Texas), and Ross Powell (Northern Illinois A site of active mountain building (as evi- With Eugene Clothiaux (Pennsylvania University), the projects seek to: denced by large earthquakes in 1899 and State University), Nolin is improving • assess whether rapid climate oscillations 1979), the Chugach/St. Elias mountain arctic energy budget estimates by combin- seen in historical records are recorded in range in southern Alaska has been glaciated ing new EOS-era products from multiple fjord and continental margin sediments; for much of the last 6 million years; its gla- satellite sensors, using MISR data to char- continued on page 3 2 Arctic Research Consortium of the United States • determine whether climate changes under the auspices of the Integrated Ocean localities along the Gakkel Ridge between since the last ice age and their biological Drilling Program (see page 24). 8°W and 85°E. A 300-km long central responses are linked to changes in amagmatic zone lies between abundant, regional ocean conditions; Geochemistry of the Gakkel Ridge continuous volcanism in the west and • establish whether current rapid melting David Graham (COAS) is part of an inter- large, widely spaced volcanic centers in the of Alaskan glaciers observed over recent national team studying the petrology and east. In this central magma-starved region, decades is an unprecedented anomaly geochemistry of the Gakkel Ridge in the mantle peridotites