Dr. Julie Brigham-Grette | |
---|---|
Alma mater | Albion College University of Colorado Boulder |
Awards | American Geophysical Union Fellow 2016 Geological Society of America Fellow 2002 |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Quaternary geology, Paleoclimate, Glacial Geology |
Institutions | University of Massachusetts Amherst |
Theses |
Julie Brigham-Grette is a glacial geologist and a professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst [1] where she co-directs the Joseph Hartshorn Quaternary Laboratory. [2] Her research expertise is in glacial geology and paleoclimatology; [1] she has made important contributions to Arctic marine and terrestrial paleoclimate records of the late Cenozoic to recent periods, the evolution of the Arctic climate, especially in the Beringia/Bering Strait region, [1] and was a leader of the international Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project [3] in northeastern Russia.
Brigham-Grette received a BA in geology from Albion College (Michigan) in 1976, graduating magna cum laude. While an undergraduate enrolled in a course on Glaciers and the Pleistocene at Albion College, Professor Lawrence D. Taylor inspired her to study glacial geology and paleoclimatology.
In 1977, Brigham-Grette began her graduate studies at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the University of Colorado Boulder. There she worked with Professor John T. Andrews (geologist), investigating the glacial and sea-level record of a region of the Cumberland Peninsula on Baffin Island (eastern Canadian Arctic). Brigham-Grette received her M.Sc. in Geology in August 1980 with the thesis entitled “Stratigraphy, Amino Acid Geochronology, and Genesis of Quaternary Sediments, Broughton Island, S.E. Baffin Island, Canada. [4] ” Her master's research led to her dissertation project, where she continued to focus on Arctic climate change and investigated the Pliocene-Pleistocene sea level history of the Alaskan Arctic Coastal Plain, working under the direction of Professor Gifford H. Miller (University of Colorado Boulder) and Dr. David M. Hopkins (U.S. Geological Survey). [5]
Brigham-Grette received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder in May 1985, with the dissertation entitled “Marine Stratigraphy and Amino Acid Geochronology of the Gubik Formation, western Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska”. [5] Brigham-Grette's graduate degrees both incorporated the use of amino acid geochronology (Amino acid dating), [6] [7] a novel technique at the time. Amino acid geochronology, a dating technique based on changes in indigenous proteins preserved in carbonate shells, provides an estimate of the amount of time that has passed since the death of the organism. [8] Brigham-Grette utilized this technique to correlate regional stratigraphic sections in order to resolve glacial geologic and sea level history.
Following her graduate work, Brigham-Grette was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Quaternary Geology, Geomorphology, and Marine Geology at the University of Bergen (Norway) from November 1983 to December 1984 where she worked with Dr. Hans-Petter Sejrup on the Geochronology of Quaternary sediments in the North Sea. Brigham-Grette subsequently was a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Geology at the University of Alberta (Edmonton) and at the Geological Survey of Canada from May 1985 to May 1987 where she worked with Dr. Steven Blasco (Geological Survey of Canada), Bedford Institute of Oceanography) on the stratigraphy and geochronology of the Canadian Beaufort Sea Continental Shelf. In 1987, she became an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in what was the Department of Geology & Geography at the time (now Geosciences). Brigham-Grette was a visiting professor at the Alaska Quaternary Center, University of Alaska Museum of the North, Fairbanks from January–June 1990. In 1993, Brigham-Grette was promoted to Associate Professor becoming the third tenured female faculty member in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. [9] In 2001, Brigham-Grette was promoted to professor. Brigham-Grette teaches courses in Glacial Geology and Glaciology, Quaternary Glacial Stratigraphy, Quaternary Geochronology, and Oceanography. Dr. Julie Brigham-Grette serves as the first woman department head for the Geosciences Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (2013–present).
Brigham-Grette has served in numerous leadership roles in the international Arctic science community. Since 2008 she has been a member [10] of the Polar Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences and has been the chairman since 2014. [11] Brigham-Grette co-chaired the DOSECC Scientific Steering Committee to direct the renewed US Continental Drilling Program from 2010 to 2012 and was Vice-Chair of the DOSECC Board of Directors from 2011 to 2013. Since 2013 Brigham-Grette has been a member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Governance Board. Throughout her career, Brigham-Grette has also served on and directed panels and committees for the American Quaternary Association, U.S. Arctic Research Commission Logistics Joint Task Force, National Science Foundation, Geological Society of America, Past Global Changes (PAGES), the National Lacustrine Core Facility (LacCore), and the National Research Council, among others. Brigham-Grette has also been an editor/served on the editorial board for the following scientific journals: Quaternary International, Quaternary Science Reviews, Climate of the Past.
Brigham-Grette has made significant research contributions to the fields of glaciology and Arctic paleoclimatology.
Brigham-Grette is recognized internationally for her leading role in the Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project. [3] The sedimentary sequence from Lake El’gygytgyn, a meteorite impact crater lake formed 3.6 million years ago, [12] was recovered in 2009 through an international research effort funded by the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany), the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and Research. [3] Lake El’gygytgyn contains the longest continuous record of Arctic climate from a continental location. Brigham-Grette was a lead principal investigator for the Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project along with Dr. Martin Melles (Germany), Dr. Pavel Sergeevich Minuyk (Russia) and Dr. Christian Koeberl (Austria). Brigham-Grette first received funding from NSF to conduct a pilot investigation of Lake El’gygytgyn in 1996. [13] Following a successful field season and interesting initial results, Brigham-Grette was awarded another NSF grant in 2000 [14] to conduct sediment coring and to investigate the modern limnological conditions of the lake. In 2005, ICDP funded the full proposal for scientific drilling at Lake El’gygytgyn. In winter 2009 during a 5-month field season, Lake El’gygytgyn was drilled through the ice and the entire sedimentary sequence was recovered; [3] drilling also recovered the rocks from the impact crater. The first paleoclimate results of the Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project were presented in the journal Science (journal) by Melles, Brigham-Grette and co-authors, [15] who investigated arctic climate history from the Lake El’gygytgyn record during the past 2.8 Ma (the Pleistocene). This paper was followed by another publication in Science (journal) in 2013 by Brigham-Grette and co-authors, [16] where Arctic climate history of the Pliocene portion of the Lake El’gygytgyn record was presented (2.6 to 2.8 million years ago). An important finding of both papers is demonstrating the significant impact of polar amplification. During the Pleistocene, Lake El’gygytgyn experienced numerous “super interglacials” with temperatures approximately 4-5 °C higher and precipitation approximately 300 mm higher than during the Holocenes. [15] In the mid-Pliocene Warm Period, when atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were likely similar to today, summer temperatures at Lake El’gygytgyn were approximately 8 °C higher. [16] Some of the subsequent results of the Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project [17] were presented by over 50 scientists in a special issue of Climate of the Past [18] and a special issue of Meteoritics and Planetary Science. [19] Research on materials recovered from Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project continues today.
One of Brigham-Grette's passions is teaching about arctic climate change. Since 2003 she has been the leader or co-leader of a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) training program in Svalbard (Norway). [20] This program provides undergraduates with hands on research investigating the links between climate, glacial mass balance, sediment transport, and lake and fjord sedimentation from a location that has warmed significantly during the past 90 years. [21] Brigham-Grette has worked with four Polar TREC teachers since 2009 [22] [23] taking high school teachers to the arctic to participate in field research expeditions.
Brigham-Grette has also been outspoken about how paleoclimate data can help us understand current and future climate change. She has given numerous lectures [24] [17] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] and appeared on radio shows [32] talking about how Arctic climate has changed since the Pliocene and what we can expect as climate change continues.
The Holocene is the current geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene is an interglacial period within the ongoing glacial cycles of the Quaternary, and is equivalent to Marine Isotope Stage 1.
An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and greenhouse periods during which there are no glaciers on the planet. Earth is currently in the ice age called Quaternary glaciation. Individual pulses of cold climate within an ice age are termed glacial periods, and intermittent warm periods within an ice age are called interglacials or interstadials.
The Pliocene is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58 million years ago. It is the second and most recent epoch of the Neogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch. Prior to the 2009 revision of the geologic time scale, which placed the four most recent major glaciations entirely within the Pleistocene, the Pliocene also included the Gelasian Stage, which lasted from 2.588 to 1.806 million years ago, and is now included in the Pleistocene.
The Pleistocene is the geological epoch that lasted from c. 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in 2009 by the International Union of Geological Sciences, the cutoff of the Pleistocene and the preceding Pliocene was regarded as being 1.806 million years Before Present (BP). Publications from earlier years may use either definition of the period. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology. The name is a combination of Ancient Greek πλεῖστος (pleîstos) 'most' and καινός 'new'.
The Quaternary is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ago to the present. The Quaternary Period is divided into two epochs: the Pleistocene and the Holocene ; a proposed third epoch, the Anthropocene, was rejected in 2024 by IUGS, the governing body of the ICS.
Quaternary geology is the branch of geology that study developments from 2.58 million years ago to the present. In particular, Quaternary geology study the process and deposits that developed during the Quaternary, a period characterized by glacial-interglacial cycles. Quaternary geology has developed over time from being originally a branch of historical geology to becoming a science on its own.
The Last Glacial Period (LGP), also known as the Last glacial cycle, occurred from the end of the Last Interglacial to the beginning of the Holocene, c. 115,000 – c. 11,700 years ago, and thus corresponds to most of the timespan of the Late Pleistocene.
Lake Elgygytgyn, also transcripted El'gygytgyn, is a crater lake in Anadyrsky District, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug in northeast Siberia, about 150 km (93 mi) southeast of Chaunskaya Bay.
The Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (BPCRC) is a polar, alpine, and climate research center at Ohio State University founded in 1960.
The Illinoian Stage is the name used by Quaternary geologists in North America to designate the Penultimate Glacial Period c.191,000 to c.130,000 years ago, during the late Middle Pleistocene (Chibanian), when sediments comprising the Illinoian Glacial Lobe were deposited. It precedes the Sangamonian Stage and follows the Pre-Illinoian Stage in North America. The Illinoian Stage is defined as the period of geologic time during which the glacial tills and outwash, which comprise the bulk of the Glasford Formation, accumulated to create the Illinoian Glacial Lobe. It occurs at about the same time as the penultimate glacial period.
Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from oxygen isotope data derived from deep sea core samples. Working backwards from the present, which is MIS 1 in the scale, stages with even numbers have high levels of oxygen-18 and represent cold glacial periods, while the odd-numbered stages are lows in the oxygen-18 figures, representing warm interglacial intervals. The data are derived from pollen and foraminifera (plankton) remains in drilled marine sediment cores, sapropels, and other data that reflect historic climate; these are called proxies.
The Oldest Dryas is a biostratigraphic subdivision layer corresponding to a relatively abrupt climatic cooling event, or stadial, which occurred during the last glacial retreat. The time period to which the layer corresponds is poorly defined and varies between regions, but it is generally dated as starting at 18.5–17 thousand years (ka) before present (BP) and ending 15–14 ka BP. As with the Younger and Older Dryas events, the stratigraphic layer is marked by abundance of the pollen and other remains of Dryas octopetala, an indicator species that colonizes arctic-alpine regions. The termination of the Oldest Dryas is marked by an abrupt oxygen isotope excursion, which has been observed at many sites in the Alps that correspond to this interval of time.
The Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, is an alternating series of glacial and interglacial periods during the Quaternary period that began 2.58 Ma and is ongoing. Although geologists describe this entire period up to the present as an "ice age", in popular culture this term usually refers to the most recent glacial period, or to the Pleistocene epoch in general. Since Earth still has polar ice sheets, geologists consider the Quaternary glaciation to be ongoing, though currently in an interglacial period.
Amino acid dating is a dating technique used to estimate the age of a specimen in paleobiology, molecular paleontology, archaeology, forensic science, taphonomy, sedimentary geology and other fields. This technique relates changes in amino acid molecules to the time elapsed since they were formed.
Timothy Raymond Naish is a New Zealand glaciologist and climate scientist who has been a researcher and lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington and the Director of the Antarctic Research Centre, and in 2020 became a programme leader at the Antarctic Science Platform. Naish has researched and written about the possible effect of melting ice sheets in Antarctica on global sea levels due to high CO2 emissions causing warming in the Southern Ocean. He was instrumental in establishing and leading the Antarctica Drilling Project (ANDRILL), and a Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report (2014).
Lake Great Falls was a prehistoric proglacial lake which existed in what is now central Montana in the United States between 15,000 BCE and 11,000 BCE. Centered on the modern city of Great Falls, Montana, Glacial Lake Great Falls extended as far north as Cut Bank, Montana, and as far south as Holter Lake. At present-day Great Falls, the Glacial Lake Great Falls reached a depth of 600 feet.
Bjørn Grothaug Andersen was a Norwegian professor of Quaternary geology and glaciology who made foundational contributions to glacial geology and the understanding of climate change.
Carlota Escutia Dotti is a Spanish geologist, best known for her work on the geologic evolution of Antarctica and the global role of the Antarctic ice cap. Escutia is based at the Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra, Universidad de Granada and the High Council for Scientific Research (CSIC).
Sajsi is the name of an ancient lake in the Andes
The Anadyr Highlands are a mountainous area in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Far Eastern Federal District, Russia.
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