Geosciences

Exploring the climate history and the geological structure and evolution of the rocks and mountains of Antarctica’s continental interior provides clues to past, present and future environmental change. Under-ice lakes, mountain chains buried by up to 4km ice, and sea bed sediments surrounding the frozen continent provide an unparalleled record of how the Earth’s climate has changed over millions of years.

Antarctica — our fifth largest continent — is 58-times the size of the UK. Buried beneath the snow and ice that cover more than 99% of its surface are chains of mountains the size of the Alps, while around the edge of the continent, and running across its centre, are other large mountain ranges that rise above the ice.

Geologists have studied the rocks in these mountains for more than a century. These rocks reveal that Antarctica has moved vast distances over millions of years. More than 500 million years ago, Antarctica straddled the equator, and the warm, shallow seas that covered the continent supported trilobites and other organisms long since extinct.

For hundreds of millions of years, Antarctica was locked in the centre of a giant continent called Gondwana. Around 150 million years ago, this supercontinent began to split apart, forming the modern continents of Australia, India, South America and Africa. At that time, instead of ice and snow, Antarctica was covered in dense forest and dinosaurs roamed its coastal plains.

Rocks and fossils tell us that the continent began to cool about 80 million years ago and around 35 million years ago, a vast ice sheet blanketed East Antarctica.

Locked in Antarctica’s rocks and in the sea bed around the continent is an unparalleled record of how the Earth’s climate has changed over millions of years. During the past 50 years, geologists at British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have built up the world’s largest archive of Antarctic rocks and fossils and made major contributions to our understanding of Antarctica’s ancient history.

Today, using BAS’s Royal Research Ship James Clark Ross to carry out surveys at sea and BAS aircraft to study remote corners of the continent, BAS geologists are using these ancient records to help predict how future climate change will affect not only Antarctica, but also the rest of the world.

Scientists at BAS are using advanced computer models to show what the Antarctic may have looked like 3 million years ago. The models suggest that during the mid-Pliocene warm period, the ice retreated significantly from the edges of the continent and was replaced by a sparse tundra vegetation. That a rise in temperature of only a few degrees centigrade had such a profound effect on Antarctica is a stark reminder of what might happen in the near future.

Percussive Rapid Access Isotope Drill

The ice sheets of Antarctica can be several kilometres thick, and contain precious information about the past climate. However, the bottoms of the ice sheets are melting, erasing this information. …

Stability and Instability – Records of External Drivers and Resulting Behaviour of Thwaites Glacier

THOR is a ship-based and ice-based project that will examine sedimentary record both offshore from the glacier and beneath the ice shelf, together with glacial landforms on the sea bed, …

Geological History Constraints on the Magnitude of Grounding Line Retreat in the Thwaites Glacier System

GHC (“Geological History Constraints”) will gather information about past ice sheet behaviour and relative sea level change in the Thwaites Glacier system. Determining the timing and magniture of past episodes …

Larsen-C Benthos

On 12 July 2017, the Larsen-C Ice Shelf calved one of the largest iceberg originating from the Antarctic Peninsula ever recorded. As iceberg A68 moves north, it leaves behind an …

ApRES and groundwater

The aim of this study is to investigate whether a technique developed to measure the basal meltrate of ice shelves can be used to monitor groundwater in arid and semi-arid …

Data As Art

DATA AS ART is a science/art project in development at NERC’s British Antarctic Survey (BAS). It visualises science data (in its widest definition), to create stunning and thought-provoking artworks, using real Antarctic …

Seismic investigation of a subglacial lake

Field Team includes: Alex Brisbourne (BAS), Andrés Rivera (CECs), Rodrigo Zamora (CECs), Field Guide (BAS). Antarctic subglacial lakes contain unique records of ice sheet history and microbial life; they may …

GOCE+Antarctica

GOCE+Antarctica- Dynamic Antarctic Lithosphere -is an international project supported by the European Space Agency (ESA) that is using GOCE satellite gravity gradient data, GPS data and innovative 3D modelling to …

PolarGAP

The polar regions have the capacity to amaze and astound, but despite the considerable progress of recent decades we still know far less about them than less remote parts of …

Automated lithological mapping using airborne hyperspectral remote sensing

Antarctica is a unique and geographically remote environment. Field campaigns in the region encounter numerous challenges including the harsh polar climate, steep topography, and high infrastructure costs. Additionally, field campaigns …

The role of Antarctic sea-ice in global climate

Sea-ice is frequently cited as a likely driver and propagator of abrupt climate change because of the rapid and far-reaching impact of its feedbacks. However, numerical climate models are still …

Climate and Ice during the Last Interglacial

During the Last Interglacial (129-116 thousand years ago, ka) CO2 and global temperature were both higher than they were before human industrialisation. By examining Last Interglacial climate, we thus gain …

Late Quaternary changes in the Westerly Winds over the Southern Ocean

In this NERC-funded project, we are generating Southern Hemisphere Westerlies (SHW) proxy records from each of the three major sectors of the Southern Ocean, focusing on subantarctic islands situated in …

Arctic marine geophysics

This research focuses on investigating the glacial histories of Arctic ice sheets and ice caps using the marine geological record preserved on continental margins. By reconstructing past ice sheets, their …

Depositional patterns and records in sediment drifts off the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica

The biggest uncertainty in predictions of sea-level rise is what the contribution will be from the great ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland as climate warms. The West Antarctic Ice …

Aero geophysical investigation of Institute and Moller Ice Streams

West Antarctic ‘rivers’ of ice

AGAP exploration of Antarctica’s hidden world

Exploring Antarctica’s ‘ghost mountains’

ANiSEED – AmuNdsen Sea Embayment Exposure Dating

This project will reconstruct millennial-scale ice sheet change in the western Amundsen Sea Embayment, Antarctica, using high-precision exposure dating.

Filchner Ice Shelf System, Antarctica

Understanding the contribution that polar ice sheets make to global sea-level rise is recognised internationally as urgent. The mission of this five-year project is to capture new observations and data …

Antarctic Seabed Carbon Capture Change

The ASCCC Project has been funded by ACE (Antarctic Circumnavigation Expedition) to investigate, quantify and understand the role of polar and subpolar seabeds in the carbon cycle, particularly in response …

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Geosciences