Speakers: Ginny Catania, Benjamin Keisling, John Goff, Sean Gulick, University of Texas Institute for Geophysics

Title: TERMINUS project: Revealing near-terminus observations of subglacial drainage, sediment transport, and long-term glacial processes in West Greenland.

Abstract: This project aims to quantify the rates of processes contributing to sediment build-up at the
termini of outlet glaciers (producing moraines) in order to improve predictions of ice sheet response to climate. Our observations will determine the degree to which moraines can be built fast enough to offset the retreat of glaciers initiated by climate perturbations and will test the idea
that moraine building is responsible for heterogeneous rates of glacier retreat and larger steady-state glaciers than would be possible in the absence of sediment. Importantly, this project makes possible model improvements in the field of coupled ice-sediment dynamics that future sea level estimates rely on. This will be accomplished with first-of-their-kind observations and sampling at active terminal moraines in Greenland using a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV), Nereid Under Ice (NUI). This is a vehicle that is purpose-built for surveying and sampling in
deep, ice marginal environments and will obtain unprecedented geological, geophysical, and
oceanographic measurements at the critically under-observed ice-sediment-ocean interface.

Our observations across three glaciers in Greenland, each with distinct histories and geometries, will
reveal the rates and distribution of processes contributing to moraine-building, but importantly
also provide ice dynamic controls. Obtaining this detailed, mechanistic understanding of
moraine-building will allow far more accurate sea-level-projecting models of ice sheets to be
built, and will provide actionable information for making glaciers more resilient to climate
change.