{"id":14810,"date":"2026-07-08T14:49:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T12:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/2026\/07\/sediment-export-and-proglacial-area-change-at-outlet-glaciers-from-the-greenland-ice-sheet\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T14:53:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T12:53:31","slug":"sediment-export-and-proglacial-area-change-at-outlet-glaciers-from-the-greenland-ice-sheet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/2026\/07\/sediment-export-and-proglacial-area-change-at-outlet-glaciers-from-the-greenland-ice-sheet\/","title":{"rendered":"Sediment export and proglacial area change at outlet glaciers from the Greenland Ice Sheet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thesis in Environmental Sciences defended by Marjolein Gevers, August 28, 2026 – Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics (IDYST).<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Greenland Ice Sheet is melting as the climate warms. Meltwater from the Ice Sheet carries sediment (small pieces of rock and soil) into rivers and oceans downstream. Some sediment is very fine and stays floating in the water, while larger pieces such as sand, gravel, and rocks move along the riverbed. Around Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), more research has been done on the fine sediment, but much less about the larger material. It is also not well understood how the areas in front of glaciers (proglacial areas) affect the movement of sediment downstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This thesis studies the sediment exported from the Greenland Ice Sheet and how the land in front of glaciers changes over time under influence of this sediment export. The first part looks at seven areas in front of glaciers in southwest Greenland between about 1985 and 2023 using digital elevation models and climate model output. Most of these areas showed erosion, meaning the ground surface became lower over time. At Leverett Glacier, icreased meltwater was linked to collapse riverbanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second part studies sediment movement at Leverett Glacier during two summer melt seasons (2022 and 2023). Measurements of river flow and environmental seismology (using vibrations in the ground to study environmental processes) were used to monitor both fine sediment and larger sediment moving along the riverbed. The study found that fine and coarse sediment react differently to increased meltwater. Fine sediment increases quickly when water flow rises, while larger sediment moves more slowly and becomes more important later in the melt season. These results show that measuring only fine sediment does not give the full picture of how much sediment leaves the Greenland Ice Sheet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PhD in Environmental Sciences<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":14808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[67055],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-thesis-defended"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14810"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14813,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14810\/revisions\/14813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/geoblog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}