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One of the key components of this research has been the mapping of Antarctic bed topography and ice thickness parameters that are crucial for modelling ice flow and hence for predicting future ice loss and the ensuing sea level rise. Supported by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the Bedmap3 Action Group aims not only to produce new gridded maps of ice thickness and bed topography for the international scientific community, but also to standardize and make available all the geophysical survey data points used in producing the Bedmap gridded products. Here, we document the survey data used in the latest iteration, Bedmap3, incorporating and adding to all of the datasets previously used for Bedmap1 and Bedmap2, including ice bed, surface and thickness point data from all Antarctic geophysical campaigns since the 1950s. More specifically, we describe the processes used to standardize and make these and future surveys and gridded datasets accessible under the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data principles. With the goals of making the gridding process reproducible and allowing scientists to re-use the data freely for their own analysis, we introduce the new SCAR Bedmap Data Portal (https://bedmap.scar.org, last access: 1 March 2023) created to provide unprecedented open access to these important datasets through a web-map interface. We believe that this data release will be a valuable asset to Antarctic research and will greatly extend the life cycle of the data held within it. Data are available from the UK Polar Data Centre: https://data.bas.ac.uk (last access: 5 May 2023​​​​​​​). See the Data availability section for the complete list of datasets.

Comprenhending Antarctic coastal regions is fundamental to our understanding of the dynamic responses of the Antarctic ice sheet to ocean and climate warming.. These coastal regions contain multiple potential tipping points for the Antarctic Ice Sheet in a warming world, which must be better understood to predict the future magnitude and rates of global sea-level rise in a more robust fashion.The Antarctic Ice Sheet constitutes the largest uncertainty in future sea-level projections. 50 years of aereogeophysical observations have led to significant advances in our knowledge of bed topography and basal conditions and itheir influence on ice sheet dynamics. primarily in the interior of Antarctica Howevver, the critical coastal regions where the West and East Antarctic ice sheets meet the ocean and that are the sites of current and future change remain in many places insufficiently surveyed and understood.Here we present a new international initiative RINGS that aims to provide the first comprehensive pan-Antarctic wide coverage of the Antarctic coast mainly via new coordinated aerogeophysical campaigns. Together with an overview of the current multidisciplinary understanding of the Antarctic coastal regions, we present a new ensemble analysis of published datasets to present data coverage and knowledge gaps, and their regional distribution is discussed in the context of present ice-sheet dynamics and potential future change Finally, we identify outstanding science priorities and discuss protocols for new airborne surveys to develop a novel comprehensive dataset of Antarctic grounding zones (the main RING) and both landward and seaward RINGS all-around Antarctica., The 28th IUGG General Assembly (IUGG2023) (Berlin 2023)

Polarimetric Airborne Scientific INstrument, mark 2 (PASIN2) is a 150 MHz coherent pulsed radar with the purpose of deep ice sounding for bedrock, subglacial channels and ice-water interface detection in Antarctica. It is designed and operated by the British Antarctic Survey from 2014. With multiple antennas, oriented along and across-track, for transmission and reception, it enables polarimetric 3D estimation of the ice base with a single pass, reducing the gridding density of the survey paths. The off-line data processing stream consists of channel calibration; 2D synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging based on back-projection, for along-track and range dimensions; and finally, a direction of arrival estimation (DoA) of the remaining across-track angle, by modifying the non-linear MUSIC algorithm. Calibration flights, during the Antarctic Summer campaigns in 16/17 and 19/20 seasons, assessed and validated the instrument and processing performances. Imaging flights over ice streams and ice shelves close to grounding lines demonstrate the 3D sensing capabilities. By resolving directional ambiguities and accounting for reflector across-track location, the true ice thickness and bed elevation are obtained, thereby removing the error of the usual assumption of vertical DoA, that greatly influence the output of flow models of ice dynamics.

East Antarctica is the least understood continent involved in the assembly of Gondwana, a key stage in the global supercontinent cycle. Thick crust stretches from Dronning Maud Land to the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, suggesting that the Kuunga Orogen, formed during the collision of India and East Antarctica during Gondwana assembly, had a significant impact on the Precambrian lithosphere of parts of interior East Antarctica. Geological and geophysical research has revealed key aspects of the collisional East African-Antarctic Orogen and the subduction-related Ross Orogen along the paleo-Pacific margin of Gondwana. However, the paths and architecture of these different orogens in the entirely ice sheet covered and remote interior of East Antarctica have remained more difficult to investigate, making it even more challenging to link subduction and collisional processes leading to Gondwana assembly and growth. Here we present a new satellite-conformed aeromagnetic anomaly compilation that includes data recently collected between the interior of Dronning Maud Land and South Pole, together with airborne and satellite gravity imaging and seismological and geological constraints that provide tantalising new views into different crustal provinces, cratons and orogens in interior East Antarctica. We propose that a suture zone, partially exposed in the Shackleton Range, may cross the continent linking major fault systems imaged in the Gamburtsev Province and Princess Elisabeth Land. By superimposing our geophysical layers on a new plate tectonic reconstruction, we explore the potential evolution of accretionary and collisional stages in East Antarctica during the assembly of Gondwana from Edicaran to Cambrian times., The 28th IUGG General Assembly (IUGG2023) (Berlin 2023)

Poster for EarthCube Annual Meeting 2021. This poster presents an overview of Open Polar Radar software and services. The Open Polar Radar (OPR) organization seeks to establish a software ecosystem to consolidate polar radar software and services and make the associated datasets standardized and searchable – all in a community driven process.

This e-book details the concept of the Reflections ii: Roker Pier project which took place during 2017/18 at the University of Sunderland as a site-specific student project, an international symposium and a Glass Heap Challenge: a day of making at the Roker beach, overlooking the Roker Pier Lighthouse. \ud \ud The ethos of the project was to re-conside industrial materials in a post-industrial era, as exemplified by the Roker Pier Lighthouse itself; an industrial building now repurposed as a tourist destination.\ud \ud This project received support from the Heritage Lottery Funding (HLF) through Sunderland City Council and University of Sunderland research funding.

The cause and distribution of spatial variations in the mechanical properties of the continental lithosphere are fundamental questions for modern geology. In this study variations in long-term lithospheric rigidity have been investigated. These investigations used profile- and grid-based flexural models of the lithosphere’s response to geologically imposed topographic, or buried, loads. These models were constrained by topographic and gravity data allowing recovery of best fitting rigidity values. In Oman a Cretaceous ophiolite acts as a significant load on the continental crust. Flexural models along profiles orthogonal to the ophiolite strike show that the observed gravity data can be best modelled by an elastic beam with standard thickness (Te) of 30 km. Along strike there is shown to be significant variation in the foreland shape and the observed gravity signal. This, it is proposed, relates to the complex tectonic processes which occurred as the ophiolite was obducted. The Himalayan foreland has been the focus of controversy over the recovered long-term rigidity of the continents, with recovered Te values ranging from 40 to over 90 km. Both profile- and grid-based techniques show that Te is high (>70 km) in the foreland region. Across the India-Eurasia collisional system as a whole Te values are variable. Beneath the Tibetan plateau recovered values are generally low ( Recovered Te values across the Arabia-Eurasia collisional system range from over 60 km in the foreland region to close to zero beneath the high Zagros mountains. In the eastern part of the foreland, flexural models match the gravity data; however, they disagree with sediment thickness data for the material infilling the foreland. This discrepancy is interpreted in terms of de-coupling of the flexural lithosphere from the shallower crustal levels, caused by the presence of significant salt deposits in this region. Application of grid-based techniques to South America, North America and Europe recover a broad range of Te values from ∼0 to over 90 km. The low Te values are explained in active orogenic belts in terms of current processes acting to weaken the lithosphere, and in the continental interiors as the relics of past orogenic events. High Te values in the continental interiors correlate with ancient cratonic cores which have undergone little deformation since their formation in the Archean. This study shows that Te variations have a critical influence on the development of large compressional orogenic belts. In the Himalayan and Andean orogens there is a correlation between the over-thrusting of the orogenic belt and high Te foreland regions. Where lower Te regions are seen, less over thrusting is apparent, and in the case of the India-Eurasia collisional system out-flow of lower crustal material may be occurring.

Recent studies have aroused concerns over the potential for ice draining the Weddell Sea sector of West Antarctica to figure more prominently in sea-level contributions should buttressing from the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf diminish. To improve understanding of how ice-stream dynamics there evolved through the Holocene, we interrogate Radio-Echo Sounding (RES) data from across the catchments of Institute and Möller Ice Streams (IIS and MIS), focusing especially on the use of internal layering to investigate ice-flow change. As an important component of this work, we investigate the influence that the orientation of the RES acquisition-track with respect to ice flow exerts on internal layering, and find that this influence is minimal unless a RES flight track parallels ice flow. We also investigate potential changes to internal layering characteristics with depth to search for important temporal transitions in ice-flow regime. Our findings suggest that ice in northern IIS, draining the Ellsworth Subglacial Highlands, has retained its present ice-flow configuration throughout the Holocene. This contrasts with less topographically-constrained ice in southern IIS and much of MIS, whose internal layering evinces spatial changes to the configuration of ice flow over the past ~10,000 years. Our findings confirm Siegert et al.’s (2013) inference that fast flow was diverted from Bungenstock Ice Rise during the Late Holocene, and suggest that this may have represented just one component of wider regional changes to ice flow occurring across the IIS and MIS catchments as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has thinned since the Last Glacial Maximum.

Recent studies have aroused concerns over the potential for ice draining the Weddell Sea sector of West Antarctica to figure more prominently in sea-level contributions should buttressing from the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf diminish. To improve understanding of how ice-stream dynamics there evolved through the Holocene, we interrogate Radio-Echo Sounding (RES) data from across the catchments of Institute and Möller Ice Streams (IIS and MIS), focusing especially on the use of internal layering to investigate ice-flow change. As an important component of this work, we investigate the influence that the orientation of the RES acquisition-track with respect to ice flow exerts on internal layering, and find that this influence is minimal unless a RES flight track parallels ice flow. We also investigate potential changes to internal layering characteristics with depth to search for important temporal transitions in ice-flow regime. Our findings suggest that ice in northern IIS, draining the Ellsworth Subglacial Highlands, has retained its present ice-flow configuration throughout the Holocene. This contrasts with less topographically-constrained ice in southern IIS and much of MIS, whose internal layering evinces spatial changes to the configuration of ice flow over the past ~10,000 years. Our findings confirm Siegert et al.’s (2013) inference that fast flow was diverted from Bungenstock Ice Rise during the Late Holocene, and suggest that this may have represented just one component of wider regional changes to ice flow occurring across the IIS and MIS catchments as the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has thinned since the Last Glacial Maximum.

The Antarctic Digital Magnetic Anomaly Project completed the first international magnetic anomaly compilation of the Antarctic region south of 60

Several recent studies predict that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet will become increasingly unstable under warmer conditions. Insights on such change can be assisted through investigations of the subglacial landscape, which contains imprints of former ice-sheet behavior. Here, we present radio-echo sounding data and satellite imagery revealing a series of ancient large sub-parallel subglacial bed channels preserved in the region between the Möller and Foundation Ice Streams, West Antarctica. We suggest that these newly recognized channels were formed by significant meltwater routed along the icesheet bed. The volume of water required is likely substantial and can most easily be explained by water generated at the ice surface. The Greenland Ice Sheet today exemplifies how significant seasonal surface melt can be transferred to the bed via englacial routing. For West Antarctica, the Pliocene (2.6–5.3 Ma) represents the most recent sustained period when temperatures could have been high enough to generate surface melt comparable to that of present-day Greenland. We propose, therefore, that a temperate ice sheet covered this location during Pliocene warm periods.

The Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains are regarded as a key nucleation site for the Antarctic Ice Sheet and they retain a unique long-term record of pre-glacial and early glacial landscape evolution. Here, we use a range of morphometric analyses to constrain the nature of early glaciation and subsequent ice sheet evolution in the interior of East Antarctica, using a new digital elevation model of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, derived from an extensive airborne radar survey. We find that an inherited fluvial landscape confirms the existence of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains prior to the onset of glaciation at the Eocene–Oligocene climate boundary (ca. 34 Ma). Features characteristic of glaciation, at a range of scales, are evident across the mountains. High elevation alpine valley heads, akin to cirques, identified throughout the mountains, are interpreted as evidence for early phases of glaciation in East Antarctica. The equilibrium line altitudes associated with these features, combined with information from fossil plant assemblages, suggest that they formed at, or prior to, 34 Ma. It cannot be ruled out that they may have been eroded by ephemeral ice between the Late Cretaceous and the Eocene (100–34 Ma). Hanging valleys, overdeepenings, truncated spurs and steep-sided, linear valley networks are indicative of a more widespread alpine glaciation in this region. These features represent ice growth at, or before, 33.7 Ma and provide a minimum estimate for the scale of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet between ca. 34 and 14 Ma, when dynamic fluctuations in ice extent are recorded at the coast of Antarctica. The implications are that the early East Antarctic Ice Sheet grew rapidly and developed a cold-based core that preserved the alpine landscape. The patterns of landscape evolution identified provide the earliest evidence for the development of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and can be used to test coupled ice–climate evolution models.

Once an ice sheet grows beyond a critical thickness, the basal thermal regime favors melting and development of subglacial water networks. Subglacial water is necessary for bedrock erosion, but the exact mechanisms that lead to preservation of subglacial topography are unclear. Here we resolve the freezing mechanisms that lead to long-term, high-altitude preservation across the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains in East Antarctica. Analyses of a comprehensive geophysical data set reveal a large-scale water network along valley floors. The ice sheet often drives subglacial water up steep topography where it freezes along high ridges beneath thinner ice. Statistical tests of hypsometry show the Gamburtsevs resemble younger midlatitude mountains, indicating exceptional preservation. We conclude that the Gamburtsevs have been shielded from erosion since the latest Eocene (∼34 Ma). These freezing mechanisms likely account for the spatial and temporal patterns of erosion and preservation seen in other glaciated mountain ranges.

This paper details and discusses Material Journey (2018), an art project by the author that was exhibited at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland (UK) from 9 June to 2 September 2018. This research project sought to interrogate the material impact of one art project made of glass by carefully considering the different stages of making&mdash, from design to production to the exhibition phase. The carbon footprint of an energy intensive material such as glass is often considered anathema to sustainable making practices in the field of applied arts. Whilst this paper makes the case that the material impact of individual art practices is negligible in the global context of carbon footprints, it nevertheless argues that the craft of &lsquo, making&rsquo, has a critical role to play in the Anthropocene. Critically, this project is one of the first art projects in glass that critically examines the carbon footprint of a material practice. It is argued that this conversation is long overdue but makes the case that the tools for understanding and calculating the carbon footprint of a material practice are currently lacking and need more development.