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Project title:
The Sorsdal Glacier, located in the vicinity of the Davis Station, is one of the key polar outlet glaciers that contributes to the drainage of the East Antarctic ice sheet.
The research will provide information on the contemporary motion of the Antarctic continent for comparison with the long-term geological records, with special emphasis on the Australia-Antarctic separation and the movement of the Macquarie Ridge and the mid-ocean ridge.
Data will be collected on the physical flow characteristics, mass balance, sub-glacial topography and recent fluctuations of a … Heard Island glacier. The potential for dating land and ice surfaces … with tephrochronology (geochemical correlation of volcanic ash layers) will also be investigated.
The objectives of this project are:
The project will deploy deep ocean moorings with automated “traps” that will obtain a week by week record of the amount of sinking particles that fall from the surface to the deep sea.
Continents are not simple geological entities, but an amalgam of fragments of different ages that preserve evidence for the repeated joining of the landmasses to form supercontinents, and their splitting apart to form a scattered array like that seen today.
Heard Island, on the World Heritage List for its geological history, has evolved over the last few million years with the volcano of Big Ben of relatively recent formation.
Baseline data on the health and reproductive success of wildlife in the Antarctic is essential to enable scientists to identify risks and stresses to populations and to modify management plans if necessary.
The isotopic composition of lead will be used to define: (i) sources of lead contamination associated with global atmospheric pollution, fuel spills and tip materials (ii) lead-dispersal patterns in the environment.