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ENRGP Exit Seminar: Soil Physical and Chemical Gradients along a Glacial Chronosequence: Skaftafellsjökull, Iceland

Apr 2, 2013, 9:30am - 10:30am

An ENR Graduate Exit Seminar will be held Tuesday, Apr. 2, 2013, at 9:30 a.m. in 333C Kottman. Nicholas Stanich will present Soil Physical and Chemical Gradients along a Glacial Chronosequence: Skaftafellsjökull, Iceland. 

Glaciers in Iceland have, in general, been retreating since the end of the Little Ice Age at the close of the 19th century. Given the general recessional behavior of Icelandic glaciers over the past century, subglacially derived till is exposed along a temporal trajectory, which provides the opportunity to analyze ecosystem change in the context of a chronosequence. This study focuses on the chronosequence about the pro-glacial area of Skaftafellsjökull, an outlet glacier of the Vatnajökull icecap in SE Iceland. Soil physical and chemical properties, and general vegetation dynamics were analyzed, which lend insight to soil change and succession in primitive ecosystems of subpolar regions.