ORCHESTRA
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ICE CAVES IN THE ORDESA AND MONTE PERDIDO NATIONAL PARK: IMPACT OF GLOBAL CHANGE AND RECONSTRUCTION PALEOENVIRONMENTAL |
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This project is focused on the study of the ice caves in the Ordesa and Monte Perdido National Park with the main aim of analysing the impact of Global Change on these fragile environments. Besides, we want to extract paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental information from the preserved fossil ice, as was previously done in other projects at a Pyrenean scale where it was demonstrated the exceptional value of the climate data stored on the ice sequences hosted in high altitude caves. Since lakes and speleothems are usually scarce in the high altitude mountains, the study of ice deposits appears as an excellent opportunity to disentangle how the climate changed during the last centuries or even millennia. |
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| On the other hand, the interest of this study can be found on the
great impact those ice sequences are experiencing as a consequence of
present day global warming. The increase in temperature, especially
notorious in regions such as the Pyrenees, is causing an increase in the
ice melting rates leading to lose the opportunity to investigate those
unique archives. It is now a priority the characterization of these ice
caves and the ice sequences and to assess them as one of the important
features of our natural and geological heritage in the Ordesa and Monte
Perdido National Park.
In this proposal we approach the study of the ice caves in an
integrative way, including (1) an ambitious monitoring survey that was
already started in previous projects, (2) the textural characterization
and sampling of the ice sequence and (3) the analyses of the chronology,
isotopic variation and pollen content in the ice samples to obtain the
record of climate changes in the past. Besides, this project wants to
investigate the microbial communities that live in the ice (extremophile
organisms) to know their rich diversity and adaptation mechanism.
This proposal contributes to the challenge defined in this Project call
as "Impact and monitoring of global change in the National Parks:
effects on the geodiversity, biodiversity, their components and
processes, both spatial and temporal" with the focus set on the impact
of global change on the ice caves, as one of the main components of the
cryosphere.
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Start date: 2020-12-10 |
End date: 2023-12-09 |
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Key people involved in BC3: |
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| Sergio H. Faria | ||
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