Nina Quinn
Contact
Email: nina.quinn@vuw.ac.nz
Office: CO421
Qualifications
BSc Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University Wellington (2023)
MSc thesis
Working Title
Glacial Evolution of the Greenland Ice Sheet through the last 1.2 million-years
Supervisors
Project objectives and description
While the history and cyclicity of the Antarctic Ice Sheets is relatively detailed, past variability of the Greenland Ice Sheet is poorly constrained, inhibiting understanding of individual polar ice sheet response to climate forcings and ultimately contribution to sea level. With future sea level rise patterns controlled by the source and relative timing of ice sheet melt, understanding the synchronicity of ice sheet changes is critical for forecasting future sea level rise.
Site U1604, recovered on the northwest Greenland continental margin during International Ocean Discovery Programme Expedition 400, provides a new, high-resolution record of ice sheet variability through the last 1.2 million years. Ice sheet margin proximity exerts a strong control on nearby sedimentary processes, and thereby sedimentary deposits. Consequently, the sedimentary sequences in Site U1604 reflect alternating predominant sedimentary processes related to the advance and retreat of the Greenland Ice Sheet through the Quaternary. This project will use visual assessment, principal component analysis, and cluster analysis to construct an integrated lithofacies model based on sedimentological variables, physical property logs, and geochemical compositions. The inherent link between lithofacies and their depositional environments will establish a record of Greenland ice margin fluctuations, that, with comparison to previous Antarctic records, will allow the relative timing of ice sheet variability to be ascertained, therefore determining the extent to which ice sheets respond synchronously. Ultimately, this study will aid in understanding different timing and sources of meltwater to global sea-level changes, such as the ‘double peak’ of the Last Interglacial, and assist future sea-level projections.
Publications
TBC