• Background to research: this page
• This link for Coniston project page

A long-term goal of my glaciological research  has been to relate modern glacial processes in locations such as Greenland and Iceland to ancient glacial landforms in areas such as the UK (check out this overview of my research). Following an expedition to Greenland in 1999 during which it became clear that diagnostic sediment characteristics from distinctive basal ice facies can be preserved in ice marginal moraines, I started to plan research looking at ancient moraines in North America (with my colleague Carrie Paterson from Minnesota) and in the UK. 

One of the first things to strike me about the Lake District, in contrast to my previous sites in Greenland and elsewhere, was the huge impact of recent human activity on the landscape. Trying to find locations where subtle glaciological evidence in the landscape was not likely to have been destroyed by mining, forestry, agriculture, or tourist activity provided the inspiration for a pilot study to assess the susceptibility of glacial geological and geomorphological sites to damage by human activity. This project is funded by the Geologists' Association Curry Fund, and it provides an opportunity to assess field sites for future work on the preservation of basal-ice signals in glacial moraines. Follow THIS LINK for information about the "Conservation of geologically sensitive glacial sites" project.

For more information about the developing work on using geomorphological and geological evidence to reconstruct the basal-ice characteristics of former glacier in the Lake District... watch this space!