I am currently studying the Punta Banderas moraine
on Lago Argentino in Argentina. Strelin & Malagnino (2000) have
dated the three moraine belts that comprise it to 13,000 ± 900 14C
yr BP (max), 11,100 ± 730 14C yr BP (max), and have a minimum age of 10,390
14C
yr BP for the third based on unpublished Mercer information provided by
Scott Stine. My project is to refine the age of the oldest stade using cosmogenic 10Be
in order to better constrain when the South
Patagonian Icefield was occupying these sites. This project was expected
to contribute to our understanding of global climate change and glaciation, but now it appears that deposition of this part of the moraine was significantly controlled by the topography.
My advisors are Dave
Mickelson and Brad
Singer.
Previous to starting my MS at the University
of Wisconsin - Madison, I was an undergraduate at the University
of Maine. For my honors thesis, I studied the stratigraphy
of the Waldoboro Moraine as exposed at Whitney Corners in Warren, Maine.
My advisor in this endeavor was Brenda
Hall and the other members of my committee were Hal
Borns Jr., Dan
Belknap, Charlie P. Slavin, and Tony Brinkley.
This is part of Caldenius's 1932 map of the extent of ice cover in southern
South America. Carl Caldenius was the first person to conduct glacial
geology research in this region of the world. The UW-Madison Quats
are doing research throughout the area pictured above, my field site,
however, is along the western shores of Lago Argentino, the southern most lake shown above.
Publications
Theses:
Becker, R.A., 2005. Did the Younger Dryas Affect the Southern Andes?. MS Thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, in research!
Becker, R. A., 2003. The Formation of the Waldoboro Moraine. Honors Thesis, University of Maine, Orono, ME, 53 pp.
Abstract:
Cyr, M., Hamilton, J., Becker, R., Short, H., and Perry, E., 2003, Educating our geoscientists of tomorrow, AGU-EUG- EGS Joint Assembly Conference Proceedings.