Author: Frédéric Herman

Benjamin latest study on postglacial erosion using luminescence is featured on the cover of Geology. Well done and nice picture!

Evaluating post-glacial bedrock erosion and surface exposure duration by coupling in situ optically stimulated luminescence and 10Be dating:

Read about the GLACE expedition and the science projects here: https://www.glaceexpedition.ch/

Read the full interview here

Congratulations to Vjeran! Here is the link.

With the conclusion of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), about 20 000 years ago, ended the most recent long-lasting cold phase in Earth history. This last glacial advance left a strong observable imprint on the landscape, such as moraines, trimlines and other glacial geomorphic features. These features reflect the extent of former glaciers and ice caps, which in turn provides information on past temperature and precipitation conditions. Here we present an inverse approach to reconstruct the equilibrium line altitudes (E) from observed ice extents. The ice-flow model is developed solving the mass conservation equation using the shallow ice approximation and implemented using Graphical Processing Units (GPUs). We present the theoretical basis of the inversion method, which relies on a Tikhonov regularization, and demonstrate its ability to constrain spatial variations in mass balance with idealized and real glaciers.

Here is a new publication by Jiao about the work he did on the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Jiao used on Raman Spectroscopy of Carbonaceous Material on sediments. The study shows how erosion patterns vary during a glacial retreat. Jiao’s new work extends nicely the work we published in the last few years using the same methodology (Herman et al., 2015; Nibourel et al., 2015; Beyssac et al., 2016).

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-018-0236-z

On August, 28, Renske Lambert graduated for her PhD. Congratulations Renske!

We would like to warmly welcome Luca Malatesta who recently joined us.

This month the Earth Surface Process Modelling group from GFZ is visiting us.  We took this opportunity to do a 2-day field excursion at the Gorner glacier flowing down Monte Rosa.