We prepare and analyze foraminiferal samples for faunal composition, stable isotopes, and radiocarbon dating. Equipment includes sieves, binocular microscopes, identification books, a reference slide collection, and more. Our data help reconstruct past marine and glacio-marine environments.
Anne Jennings
Director
John Andrews
Emeritus fellow
Isaac Leb
Grad student
Contact
Anne Jennings Lab room: SEEC S173
Anne Jennings checks out a sieved sediment sample on the microscope.
Mariah Walton cleans a split core on a research cruise off the coast of West Greenland. Photo by Ursula Quillmann.
Ursula Quillmann uses a microscope to count and collect forams in the Micropaleontology Lab.
What 25-million-year-old ocean sediment can teach us about our planet’s future
Anne Jennings in front of the JOIDES Resolution ship before they left for Greenland in August, 2023 (Credit: Philip Staudigel)
Anne Jennings and her colleagues spent two months on a ship off the coast of Greenland drilling sediment cores deep below the ocean floor. They were searching for clues that will help predict melting patterns of major ice sheets in our warming world.
Example project - Studying past climates and ice shelf history of Petermann Glacier and Nares Strait, northwestern Greenland
In the summer of 2015, we spent a month aboard the Swedish icebreaker ship Oden to collect marine sediment cores from Petermann Fjord and northern Nares Strait, a gateway between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. We processed the cores in a lab on board ship to start reading the history of past climates and ice shelves. Intensive followup work by ourselves and colleagues took place over subsequent years in multiple labs, including the INSTAAR Micropaleontology Lab.
Blog
Read about our 2015 shipboard research in a blog post entitled "Sediment Cores: Core Description Team"
Map from a publication on modern foraminiferal assemblages in northern Nares Strait, Petermann Fjord, and beneath Petermann ice tongue, NW Greenland
Publications
We've authored and contributed to a number of publications about the northwest Greenland region based on this project. Here are examples:
- Holocene sea-ice dynamics in Petermann Fjord in relation to ice tongue stability and Nares Strait ice arch formation
- Local and regional controls on Holocene sea ice dynamics and oceanography in Nares Strait, Northwest Greenland
- Glacial sedimentation, fluxes and erosion rates associated with ice retreat in Petermann Fjord and Nares Strait, north-west Greenland
- Modern foraminiferal assemblages in northern Nares Strait, Petermann Fjord, and beneath Petermann ice tongue, NW Greenland
- Retreat of the Smith Sound Ice Stream in the Early Holocene
- Holocene break-up and reestablishment of the Petermann Ice Tongue, Northwest Greenland
- The Holocene retreat dynamics and stability of Petermann Glacier in northwest Greenland
Video
See Anne Jennings on 60 Minutes in the 2016 video below. She talks about forams and sediments that hold clues to Petermann Glacier's past. The video discusses both land and marine research. The marine section starts at the 7-minute mark; Anne appears at the 9.5-minute mark.
Publications
Publications for Jennings and Andrews are included below
