Aylin de Campo

Contact

Phone: 022 682 0343
Email: aylin.decampo@vuw.ac.nz
Office: CO509

Qualifications

BSc University of Graz, Austria (2018)
MSc Technical University of Graz, Austria (2021)

PhD thesis

Title TBC

Supervisors

Dr. Shaun Eaves
Dr. Kevin Norton

Project objectives and description

Mountain glaciers, which are especially sensitive to climate changes, are currently undergoing extensive transformations. According to the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) the Austrian glaciers are among the fastest shrinking glaciers in Europe, with a predicted glacial area loss of more than 80% by the end of the century. These predictions emphasise the urgency to further investigate glacier behaviour. At the same time, glacial retreat offers the opportunity to investigate the newly exposed bedrock for indicators which were so far hidden under a thick layer of ice.

I want to test the hypothesis that mountain glaciers around the world are now smaller than ever before. In order to test this hypothesis, I want to develop geological records of past mountain glacier fluctuations. This involves finding improved methods to determine whether mountain glaciers have been smaller than their recent extent. These reconstructions of past responses of glaciers to environmental changes is an important tool to assess the consequences of present-day climate change on mountain glaciers.

A method to investigate mountain glacier fluctuations, that has recently come into more frequent use, is the measuring of cosmogenic nuclides in glacial bedrock samples. When the bedrock is exposed to cosmic radiation cosmogenic nuclides like 14C and 10Be are produced in the upper layers of the rock. When the bedrock is covered by ice the cosmogenic nuclides production is halted. Since
14C and 10Be have different production and decay rates the ratio of these two in bedrock samples gives information about the amount of time the sample was buried by ice and the amount of time it was exposed to cosmic rays.

To determine whether mountain glaciers have been smaller than their recent extent, bedrock samples from locations close to the glacier terminal are favoured. Cosmogenic nuclides are found in the upper layers of the bedrock so Holocene erosion rates on these samples should be minimal.