Assoc. Prof. Liz Griffith was part of an international team of scientists who published new results in Nature which studied how the West Antarctic Ice responded to warmer climate millions of years ago (reference listed below). Strontium isotope results from bits of fossil shells prepared and analyzed by Dr. Griffith (pictured below) in the Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry Lab and School of Earth Sciences Clean Lab facility were critical to help verify the age model for the deep sea sediment cores.
This new work suggests that Antarctica’s ice could be more vulnerable to warming (link to Imperial press release). In this paper led by scientists at Imperial College London as part of the International Ocean Discovery Program, it was shown that the extent of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) was larger than thought during colder periods in the Miocene, around 18-16 million years ago. “This means it contributed a lot more to sea-level rise events millions of year ago than previously thought. This insight will help researchers more accurately predict the future of the WAIS at the world warms (Marschalek et al 2021).”
‘A Large West Antarctic Ice Sheet Explains Early Neogene Sea-Level Amplitude’ by J.W. Marschalek et al published in Nature, 600, 450-455. doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04148-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04148-0