2017 Ablation Zone Photos
In July 2017 I spent 1 week at a field location in the ablation zone in the Issunguata Sermia catchment. This field site was where scientists from the University of Montana and University of Wyoming installed inclinometers and temperature sensors throughout the ice column in 9 boreholes. I helped to dismantle the field experiments and map the bed using ground penetrating radar.
2017 Ablation Zone Photos
In July 2017 I spent 1 week at a field location in the ablation zone in the Issunguata Sermia catchment. This field site was where scientists from the University of Montana and University of Wyoming installed inclinometers and temperature sensors throughout the ice column in 9 boreholes. I helped to dismantle the field experiments and map the bed using ground penetrating radar.
2017 Ablation Zone Photos
RESEARCH
Advancing our understanding of firn hydrology requires synthesizing observations and model output from the kilometer scale down to the grain scale, which involves combining laboratory, field-based, and remote-sensing datasets.
I take a multiscale approach to study the feedbacks between water and firn structure, to understand the spatial and temporal evolution of water storage modes across ice sheets and ice shelves.
I eager to continue developing projects that examine firn hydrology through targeted field campaigns, laboratory studies, computational analyses of remotely-sensed data products and climate model ouput, and studies of seasonal snowpack processes as analogues for firn hydrology.
Seawater Infiltration in
Antarctic Ice Shelves
Ice shelves fringe ~75% of Antarctica and restrain the flow of continental ice into the ocean. Their collapse is a likely mechanism for Antarctic sea level contribution. While surface melt can trigger hydrofracture and disintegration, seawater infiltration into firn presents another pathway for liquid water to access ice shelves. Brine aquifers sourced by seawater have been identified in a few direct drilling campaigns, but their extent, structure, and impact on ice shelf stability remain poorly understood across Antarctica. These brine systems represent a new dimension of firn hydrology: we now need to know how saltwater and salt entrainment change physical processes driving firn metamorphism and constrain the interactions between brine systems and surface meltwater infiltration.
Recent Projects
Pervasive Seawater Infiltration in Antarctic Ice Shelves: Mechanisms and Future Aquifer Evolution
(AGU Fall Meeting 2025)
Here, we analyze airborne ice-penetrating radar data, lidar data, digital elevation models, and climate model output to identify brine layers, infer the mechanism by which they formed, and assess the possibility that these aquifers might transition into meltwater or mixed aquifer systems in the future. We examined approximately 145,000 km of flightlines from modern airborne ice-penetrating radar datasets and documented brine in nearly 4,500 km of flightlines over more than 30 Antarctic ice shelves. By reconciling radargrams with available digital elevation models and lidar data, we classified these aquifers as forming from infiltration at the calving front, at the ice shelf base, through rifts, through basal crevasses, or from damaged ice at the lee of ice rises or shear zones. Our results highlight that fracture and damage lead to widespread seawater infiltration on ice shelves in all sectors of Antarctica for which we have data.
Structural Characteristics and Revised Thickness Estimates of the Larsen D Ice Shelf
(AGU Fall Meeting 2025 - Led by undergraduate researcher, Victoria Villagomez)
Larsen D is a thin ice shelf, with ice thickness ranging from 30 m to 400 m. Additionally, we find that the ice shelf is highly damaged in the shear zones between outlet glaciers supplying continental ice to the shelf. Within the thin and damaged portions of the ice shelf, we identified extensive regions of seawater infiltration in the firn. We suggest that Larsen D is mostly a melange-type system made up of locally accumulated snow and firn where seawater may infiltrate upwards through the porous ice shelf base. Our findings highlight the structural complexity of Larsen D, which can cause significant uncertainty in hydrostatic estimates of ice shelf thickness that do not correctly account for the presence of a thick seawater-saturated firn layer.