The National Science Foundation awarded a team of Georgetown and University of Texas at Austin geoscience and history researchers a $25,000 rapid response research (RAPID) grant to travel to Iceland to study a glacial outburst flood.

The team won the grant in November 2014 and will travel to Iceland when the flood occurs, although the timing for the flood is not yet known as it is a natural occurrence. Researchers will collect water and sediment from the flood to find data that has never been collected in the past.

The team, composed of adjunct assistant professor of geosciences Douglas Howard, professor of history John McNeill, a Georgetown undergraduate student Lena Bichell (COL ’15) and a group from the University of Texas at Austin, will collect data from the glacial outburst flood as it occurs.

Bichell, an environmental biology major, was selected by Howard and McNeill to take part in the project. She said she is eager to travel to Iceland as a member of the research team.

“As an undergraduate student, I was reassured by the fact that I could contribute,” Bichell said. “Not only is this an opportunity to gather information, but the professors involved very much feel like it’s benefitting us students, which is great.”

Glacial outburst floods take place when a body of water contained by a glacier melts, forming a sub-glacial lake that eventually breaks through the ice and catastrophically releases a flood. A glacial outburst flood can be triggered by a volcanic eruption, as is the case with the outburst flood the research team will study, or can be caused by glaciers melting because of global warming.

Outburst floods linked to climate change are more common in mid-latitude high elevation areas such as the Himalayas, the Peruvian Alps and Northern Canada.

Glacial outburst floods have devastating effects on the surrounding environment, according to Howard.

“Anything in its [the flood’s] path is basically wiped out,” Howard said. “There’s so much power, so much energy with these floods that they essentially strip the surface of the channel in the direction of flow clean down to the bedrock.”

The RAPID grant was awarded to the research team in November 2014 and will be in effect until the end of October. According to NSF’s Program Director of Geomorphology and Land-Use Dynamics Richard Yuretich, the number of grants awarded varies from year to year, but averages three to four.

“The award depends on the uniqueness of the event and the ability of the proposal to use this to advance knowledge of fundamental processes that occur at the Earth’s surface,” Yuretich wrote in an email to The Hoya. “These glacial outburst floods are among the most catastrophic that occur on Earth. Obtaining data on the magnitude of these events is difficult, since they often occur without warning and the results can be devastating.”

RAPID grants are awarded to proposals that demonstrate severe urgency in the availability of and access to data, facilities and equipment in the cases of unanticipated events that require quick-response research.

The research team began working on the proposal once they received indications in August that the activity of the Bárðarbunga volcano would eventually lead to a glacial outburst flood because of the melting of the Vatnajökull glacier that overtops the volcano.

The group from the University of Texas at Austin includes professor and C.B. Smith Centennial Chair of Geography and the Environment Timothy Beach, Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography and the Environment Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach and doctoral student of geography and environment Samantha Krause.

Beach was previously a professor in Georgetown’s Science, Technology and International Affairs program for 21 years.

Howard emphasized the unique research opportunities presented by the imminent glacial outburst flood.

“This catastrophic outburst flood may only occur once in the life of this volcanic eruption. These kinds of events are very ephemeral; they don’t happen very often,” Howard said. “They awarded the grant so that we could observe it, and [these outburst floods] are rarely observed or collected data from like we have proposed.”

A glacial outburst flood can last from hours to several days, giving the researchers a narrow window of time to travel to Iceland and study the flood when the event unfolds.

The research team will monitor changes in the water chemistry and temperature at certain locations along the channel, as well as collect waterborne sediment samples in order to analyze the effect of the outburst flood on the site’s geomorphological features.

Data like this has never before been collected throughout the entire process of an outburst flood.

“This very possibly could be the largest [glacial outburst] flood in the history of the world that we’ve studied and put boundaries on,” Beach said. “It gives us an upper boundary on what geomorphic agents can do.”

The study will contribute to existing knowledge of glacial outburst floods in terms of how they change the landscape and impact human settlements over time. The project will not only provide a better understanding of the glacial flood in Iceland but can also be used to model similar outburst floods in more heavily populated areas of the world and even on other planets.

Howard has previously conducted research into how the dramatic changes to topography brought about by a glacial outburst flood can be used as analogs for similar floods on Mars.

“Doing studies like this one in Iceland helps us understand and warn people about the dangers of living in flood zones,” Luzzadder-Beach said. “It also greatly informs our understanding of planetary geomorphology around models to be created to study landforms elsewhere on earth and on other planets.”