Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Past Ice-Ocean Interactions On The Sabrina Coast Shelf, East Antarctica: Deglacial To Recent Paleoenvironmental Insights From Marine Sediments, Kara J. Vadman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) contains ~53 meters of sea level equivalent (SLE) ice, and observations suggest it is sensitive to ongoing and past climate change. The EAIS has traditionally been considered insensitive to climate perturbations because it is largely grounded above sea level. However, aerogeophysical surveys, oceanographic observations, and models indicate that large areas of the EAIS are grounded below sea level and contain 19.2 m SLE. Marine-based parts of the EAIS are thought to be located on inland-sloping beds that drain through marine terminating outlet glaciers, indicating large areas of the EAIS may be more sensitive to …

Application Of Modern Foraminiferal Assemblages To Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction: Case Studies From Coastal And Shelf Environments, Christian Haller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of paleoenvironmental studies is to reconstruct characteristics of the past environment from fossil assemblages preserved in sedimentary strata. Thus, studies of modern surface assemblages, quantitatively correlated to the environmental parameters, are required before reliable interpretations can be made. For this dissertation, two different techniques were applied in two case studies: a reconstruction making use of a benthic foraminiferal transfer function from the intertidal marshes in the eastern Mississippi Sound, Alabama/Mississippi, and a qualitative reconstruction of ocean current activity on the Western Australian shelf.

Modern salt-marsh foraminifera were collected from Grand Bay, Pascagoula, Fowl River, and Dauphin Island across …

Palaeoclimatic Significance Of Perennial Ice Accumulations In Caves: An Example From Scarisoara Ice Cave, Romania, Aurel Persoiu Tiritu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stable isotopes in ice cores drilled in the polar and high-mountain region have been used intensively to reconstruct past climatic changes and atmospheric dynamics. However, no similar studies have been conducted on perennial ice accumulations in caves due to a limited understanding of the links between the external and cave environments, and the way in which the climatic signal can be recorded by the cave ice.

In this thesis, we successfully designed and build a research methodology for the reconstruction of past climatic changes based on perennial ice accumulation in caves, using as example the Scarisoara Ice Cave, Romania. The …