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Dr. Margaret Jackson

Assistant Professor (Geography)
      
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Dr. Margaret Jackson

Assistant Professor (Geography)

 


My research focuses on how changes in climate are reflected in glacial landscapes. The causes of Earth's ice ages and their abrupt terminations are still uncertain, but are key to understanding our climate system and its capacity for (sometimes rapid) change.

Glaciers are highly sensitive to changes in climate. I study the traces that glaciers leave on Earth's surface as they grow and decay, and use these markers to reconstruct the timing and extent of past glacial fluctuations in regions around the globe. My goal is to use glacial-geomorphic records to understand the linkages between climate and glaciation, and to learn more about Earth's climate system in the past, present, and future.

This work involves detailed surface mapping, geochronology (surface-exposure dating, radiocarbon), and synoptic assessment of palaeoclimate and geomorphic records.

My research relies heavily on field work, and includes sites in Ireland, Iceland, Peru, Uganda, Greenland, and in the Antarctic.
  Climate Change   climate change impacts   GEOCHRONOLOGY   GEOGRAPHY   GEOMORPHOLOGY   Glacial Geology   PALAEOCLIMATE   Quaternary geology/ geomorphology   QUATERNARY STRATIGRAPHY
Project Title
 Life in the Currents
From
To
Summary
"Life in the Currents" represents a novel investigation into the role of naturally driven variability in the historical and contemporary exploitation of marine life in the Northeast Atlantic. The project addresses the challenge of assessing the impacts of natural and anthropogenically driven climatic and oceanic variability on marine ecosystems, and the effects of these oceanic changes on terrestrial life and human societies. The outcome of the project is anticipated to resolve intriguing questions, such as how the ocean circulations have an impact on primary biological production and coastal geomorphologies; how does oceanic-riverine interaction affect marine ecosystems (e.g., river flooding as a control of terrestrial nutrient run-off into marine ecosystems); to what degree can variable ocean dynamics explain historical variability in fish catch documented for the past 500-hundred years and how unique are ocean circulation changes within the span of human habitation in Northeast Atlantic?
Funding Agency
Trinity College Dublin
Programme
Prendergast Challenge Awards
Project Title
 Assessing the sensitivity of Ireland's glaciers to changing climate using paired glacial geomorphology and glaciologic modelling
From
2022
To
2023
Summary
Ireland's landscape is one shaped by glaciation. While a longstanding focus of inquiry and debate, the history and evolution of Ireland's glaciers have long remained uncertain, with little chronologic control on past glacial extents beyond sparse limiting radiocarbon ages [e.g., 1]. As a result, the models used to assess past ice sheet and glacier sensitivity to changing climate conditions have not been fully 'ground truthed'. This leads to greater uncertainty regarding the response of Ireland's ice to changing climate, with implications for our understanding of local (and global) ice-sheet sensitivity to climate change, regional sea-level modeling, landscape evolution, and human settlement. Recent advances in geochemistry, particularly in cosmogenic surface-exposure dating (SED), have opened the Irish landscape to direct chronologic investigation. Through applying SED to glacial landforms, we can now determine directly the past timing and magnitude of glacial fluctuations, thus providing discrete targets (spatial and temporal) for glaciological models to match. Applications of SED in Ireland have yielded novel information on the timing of former Irish Ice Sheet (IIS) recession to the Atlantic coast [2], and have placed bounds on existing IIS models during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) [3]. However, these data remain relatively sparse, and questions remain regarding the former elevation, extent, and dynamics of the IIS following the LGM, particularly in regions inland from the coast which were presumably unaffected by local sea level changes during deglaciation. This project will target the exceptionally well-preserved glacial landscape of Slieve Carr, Co. Mayo in northwestern Ireland (Fig. 1) to assess the timing of terrestrial IIS recession in Ireland's interior northwest. Slieve Carr hosts numerous glacial moraines that can be targeted for cosmogenic beryllium-10 SED. First-hand site inspection confirms suitable lithology, and my preliminary snowline reconstructions suggest that the most extensive former ice positions preserved at Slieve Carr pre-date the late-glacial period (15-11 ka), and may date to the earliest onset of IIS recession from the region (Fig. 2). Moreover, the site is host to moraine-dammed wetlands that provide opportunity to investigate continuous sedimentary records of environmental change (Fig. 2). Should basal sediments be well preserved, they would provide indication of the timing of IIS recession from the site, and offer opportunity to produce a local beryllium-10 production rate. This would be the first such production rate from Ireland, and may constitute one of the few production rate calibrations in the world which pre-dates the late-glacial period. Based on the results of SED and sedimentary analyses, I will then use glaciological modeling to determine the climate conditions associated with dated glacial fluctuations.
Funding Agency
British Society for Geomorphology
Programme
Early Career Research Grant
Project Title
 
From
To
Summary
Funding Agency
Geological Survey of Ireland
Programme
GSI Equipment Call 2021
Project Title
 The Irish Cosmogenic Nuclide Facility (ICNF): Growing Ireland"s capacity for cutting-edge cosmogenic nuclide geochronology
From
To
Summary
Funding Agency
Geological Survey of Ireland
Programme
Call for applications for equipment acquisition or upgrade

Details Date
Editorial Board, Quaternary Geochronology
Doughty, A., Kelly, M., Russell, J., Jackson, M., Anderson, B., Chipman, J.W., and Nakileza, B., Last Glacial Maximum reconstructions of Rwenzori Mountain Glaciers, Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology , 2023, pe2022PA004-, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Foreman, A., Bromley, G.R.M., Hall, B.H., and Jackson, M.S., A 10Be dated record of glacial retreat in Connemara, Ireland, after the Last Glacial Maximum and implications for regional climate, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 2022, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Garelick, S., Russell, J., Richards, A., Smith, J., Kelly, M. Anderson, N., Jackson, M.S., Doughty, A., Nakileza, B., and Ivory, S, Dynamics of warming during the last deglaciation in high-elevation regions of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Quaternary Science Reviews, 2022, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Jackson, M.S., Bromley, G.R.M., and Hall, B.L., Glacial fluctuations in the southwestern Wicklow Mountains, Ireland., European Geosciences Union General Assembly, Vienna, Austria, 2022, Published Abstract, PUBLISHED
Modeling glacier extents and equilibrium line altitudes in the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda, over the last 31,000 yr in, editor(s)Richard B. Waitt, Glenn D. Thackray, Alan R. Gillespie , Untangling the Quaternary Period - A Legacy of Stephen C. Porter , 2021, [Doughty, A.M., Kelly, M.A., Russell, J.M., Jackson, M.S., Anderson, B.M., Chipman, J., Nakileza, B., and Dee, S.G], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI
Vickers, A.C., Shakun, J.S., Goehring, B.M., Gorin, A., Kelly, M.A., Jackson, M.S., Doughty, A.M., and Russell, J.M., Similar Holocene glaciation histories in tropical South America and Africa, Geology, (G48059), 2021, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
Kelly, M.A., Bromley, G., Doughty, A., Jackson, M.S., Cunningham, M., Ruiz-Carrascal, D., Restrepo-Moreno, S.A., Herbert, J., Farnell, A.B., Russell, J.M, Garelick, S., Nakileza, B., Kaplan, M.R., and Hidy, A., The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and Termination 1 in the tropics based on glacial extent records, American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2021, Published Abstract, PUBLISHED
Foreman, A., Bromley, G., Hall, B., and Jackson, M., Abrupt climate change in the Irish cryospheric record, Irish Quaternary Association Autumn Symposium, 2021, Published Abstract, PUBLISHED
Garelick, S., Russell, J., Richards, A., Smith, J., Kelly, M.A., Anderson, N., Jackson, M.S., Doughty, A.M., Nakileza, B., and Ivory, S., Impact of temperature and tropical lapse rate variations on mountain environments of Eastern Equatorial Africa since the Last Glacial Maximum, American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2021, Published Abstract, PUBLISHED
Jackson, M.S., Kelly, M.A., Russell, J.M., Doughty, A.M., Howley, J.A., Cavagnaro, Baber, M.B., D.B., Zimmerman, S.R.H., and Nakileza, B., Glacial fluctuations in tropical Africa during the last glacial termination and implications for tropical climate following the Last Glacial Maximum, Quaternary Science Reviews , 243C, (106455), 2020, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  DOI
  

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Jackson, M.S., The glacial past, present, and future of the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda., University College Dublin Mountain Research Group Seminar Series, 2022, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Jackson, M.S., Bromley, G.R.M., Hall, B.L., Eaves, S.R., and Foreman, A., Mountain glacier fluctuations in the Glen of Imaal, Ireland, during the Last Glacial Maximum and Termination 1, Irish Quaternary Association (IQUA) Autumn Symposium, Maynooth, Ireland, 2022, Published Abstract, PUBLISHED
Jackson, M.S., Using the Quaternary record to project our future, Irish Quaternary Association Spring Symposium, 2021, Invited Talk, PRESENTED
Jackson, M.S., Glacial History of the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda, 2019, Thesis, PUBLISHED