Robert Bauer, Ph.D. - US grants

Kyanite-bearing mineral assemblages are rare in the Archean where high-grade plutonic-metamorphic terranes tend to be dominated by low-pressure high-temperature metamorphic regimes. This has led to speculations regarding higher geothermal gradients in the Archean and has restricted analogies between high-grade Archean terranes and younger terranes with established relationships to convergent margin plate tectonic settings. This work will expand on a study of Archean rocks in the Quetico subprovince of northeastern Minnesota where kyanite is present and a plate tectonic model has been developed. The objective is to determine the relationship of deformation and metamorphism in the deep crustal level to adjacent shallower levels of the belt exposed to the east. Results are expected to clarify Archean plate settings and the nature of the Archean geothermal gradient.

Scambos/0944763

This award supports the continuation of the Antarctic Glaciological Data Center (AGDC), an NSF-supported data activity for the past 10 years. The project will continue to gather, document, post, and distribute Antarctic data for NSF OPP's Antarctic Glaciology Program and related NSF programs that wish to locate data there. The primary focus is archiving NSF-OPP Antarctic Glaciology program Principal Investigator(PI) field, laboratory, and computer model data ("PI data sets") generated by funded research. AGDC has benefited from its location at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, because of its ability to easily incorporate related, important NASA-sponsored compiled products and other data sets derived from other efforts at the Center. The Center offers access to an extensive expertise in data management and web distribution as well. The current PI data set archives are available by direct data download from an ftp site. Data discovery, browse and distribution for AGDC data sets are supported by a recently developed web tool that provides MapServer-based geospatial browse, ordering, and data delivery. This site, the Antarctic Cryosphere Access Portal (A-CAP), permits rapid scanning of available data for a region of interest, and the ability to overlay multiple data sets over various continent-wide maps, images, and geophysical products. The intellectual merit of the AGDC is that it directly supports Antarctic ice and climate research by facilitating data access and archiving older data, important for change detection and project planning. The site's archives have been a contributor to many published research papers. The broader impacts of the project are that it will be part of the ongoing discipline-wide trend to a more web-based approach to earth science research and data access in general, in collaboration with partner data centers AGIC (Antarctic Geospatial Information Center) and MDIC (Marine Data and Information Center). Furthermore, by making "real data" on the cryosphere accessible to the public, it fosters interest and understanding in the Polar Regions and the changes going on there.