PhD Dissertation: Preservation and Sediment Cycling Beneath “Ghost Glaciers”: How Cold-Based Ice Dictates Arctic Landscape Evolution
OVERVIEW
Arctic landscapes are incredibly complex. They are alternately inundated with glacial ice, then exposed to periglacial conditions. The glacial ice that covers them can be highly erosive or not erosive at all, and the efficiency of subglacial erosion is transient across both space and time. Large ice sheets can behave differently than smaller ice caps or glaciers, adding an additional level of complexity and heterogeneity. My dissertation sought to understand how these landscapes evolve over time, and how glaciers and ice sheets transport sediment and act as agents of landscape change.
The tents finally emerge, surrounded by drifts, after a vicious three-day storm during an ice coring expedition on the Greenland Ice Sheet near Camp Century (July 2011).
Northward view of Wolstenholme Fjord from Thule Air Base, Greenland, including some of the landscape detailed in the 2015 Quaternary Science Reviews paper.
Awesome camp next to an ice-marginal lake north of Thule, Greenland (August 2012).
Sampling boulders on glacial moraines near Thule, Greenland (July 2013).
The 2013 field team visits "Secret Place" in Thule, Greenland to celebrate the 4th of July (July 2013). Thanks to Everett Lasher for field assistance!
A spectacular glacial moraine near Thule, Greenland (July 2013). Everett Lasher for scale.
Baffin Island graces the cover of GSA Bulletin (Corbett et al., 2016).
PUBLICATIONS
Corbett, L.B., Bierman, P.R., and Davis, P.T. 2016. Glacial history and landscape evolution of southern Cumberland Peninsula, Baffin Island, Canada, constraining by cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 128: 1173-1192. (On the cover of the July 2016 GSA Bulletin, above)
Corbett, L.B., Bierman, P.R., and Rood, D.H. 2016. Constraining multi-stage exposure-burial scenarios for boulders preserved beneath cold-based glacial ice in Thule, northwest Greenland. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 440: 147-157.
Corbett, L.B., Bierman, P.R., Lasher, G.E., and Rood, D.H. 2015. Landscape chronology and glacial history in Thule, northwest Greenland. Quaternary Science Reviews 109, 57-67.
CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS
Corbett, L.B., Bierman, P.R., Davis, P.T., Neumann, T.A., and Rood, D.H. 2016. Arctic investigations of boulders and bedrock surfaces preserved beneath non-erosive glacial ice using paired 10Be and 26Al analyses. Third Nordic Workshop on Cosmogenic Nuclide Techniques, Stockholm, Sweden.
Corbett, L.B., Bierman, P.R., and Rood, D.H. 2015. Constraining multi-stage exposure-burial scenarios for boulders preserved beneath cold-based ice in Thule, Northwest Greenland. Geological Society of American National Meeting, Baltimore, MD. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 47(7): 712. (Invited talk).
Corbett, L.B., Bierman, P.R., and Davis, P.T. 2015. Glacial chronology and landscape evolution on Baffin Island, Canada, constrained by a compilation of paired 26Al/10Be analyses. Northeastern Geological Society of America Meeting, Bretton Woods NH. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 47(3): 63.
Corbett, L.B., Bierman, P.R., Lasher, G.E., and Rood, D.H. 2014. Investigating glacial history and landscape chronology with cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al in Thule, northwestern Greenland. Geological Society of American National Meeting, Vancouver Canada. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 46(6): 240.
Corbett, L.B., Kelly, M.A., Osterberg, E.C., Lasher, G.E., and Axford, Y. 2014. Glacial sediments and landscape chronology in Thule, northwestern Greenland. Northeastern Geological Society of America Meeting, Lancaster PA. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 46(2): 44.
Axford, Y., Kelly, M.A., Osterberg, E.C., Francis, D.R., Roy, E., Richter, N., Farnsworth, L., Corbett, L.B., Bigl, M., and Pfeiffer, A. 2014. Paleolimnological records of Last Interglacial (?), late glacial and Holocene climate and environmental change in northwest Greenland. International Arctic Workshop, Boulder, CO. International Arctic Workshop Program and Abstracts.
Corbett, L.B., Kelly, M.A., Osterberg, E.C., Axford, Y., Bigl, M., Roy, E.P., and Thompson, J.T. 2013. Holocene history of North Ice Cap, northwest Greenland. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA. Abstract ID C33A-0662.
Kelly, M.A., Osterberg, E.C., Axford, Y., Bigl, M., Birkel, S.D., Corbett, L.B., Roy, E.P., Thompson, J.T., and Whitecloud, S. 2013. Evidence for smaller extents of the northwestern Greenland Ice Sheet and North Ice Cap during the Holocene. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA. Abstract ID C33A-0663.
Axford, Y., Bigl, M., Carrio, C., Corbett, L.B., Francis, D.R., Hall, B.H., Kelly, M.A., Levy, L., Lowell, T.V., Osterberg, E.C., Richter, N., Roy, E., and Schellinger, G.C. 2013. Insect-Based Holocene (and Last Interglacial?) Paleothermometry from the E and NW Greenland Ice Sheet Margins: A Fly's-Eye View of Warmth on Greenland. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA. Abstract ID PP14B-08.
Corbett, L.B., Osterberg, E.C., Kelly, M.A., and Axford, Y. 2012. Holocene paleolimnological records from Thule, northwestern Greenland. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA. Abstract ID PP23B-2048.