Quaternary Glaciations
We have been studying Quaternary glaciations across various regions including Turkey, Ethiopia, Scandinavia, and the Alps for many years. In 2017, we embarked on a research initiative to examine the evolution of the Eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. This project saw us partnering with the International Polar Foundation (Belgium), Turkish Polar Research Institute, and Swiss Polar Institute, participating in the BELARE 2017-18 and 2018-19 Antarctic expeditions during the austral summers of those years. Our findings from these expeditions indicate that the Eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet maintained stability from the late Miocene through to the Pliocene, after which it experienced surface fluctuations. Notably, we showed that the ice sheet's drainage system underwent reorganization before 1 Ma and has since shown a dramatic response to global climate changes since the Lateglacial period, more significantly than previously understood. To delineate the timing of these changes, we employed a novel approach using in-situ cosmogenic 14C analysis, complemented by traditional paired analyses of 10Be, 21Ne, 26Al, and 36Cl isotopes. This multiple nuclide analysis led us to conclude that in regions with prolonged low erosion rates, like Antarctica, the landscape's inheritance can obscure true exposure histories, sometimes by less than a few tens of thousands of years.