Earth
and Space Sciences Faculty |
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Stan
E. Chernicoff |
Areas of Interest:
Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology
Other UW Academic Affiliations:
Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Education for Academic Support
Current Research:
The glacial geology of the
Pacific Northwest reads like a textbook of glacial sedimentation and geomorphology.
Multiple alpine and continental glaciations have assembled a remarkably complete
inventory of glaciogenic sediments and erosional and depositional landforms.
Since his arrival in Seattle in 1981, Stan Chernicoff has embarked on a research
program that seeks to deduce the glaciological nature of the Northwest's Pleistocene
ice masses from their sedimentary and geomorphic records.
Chernicoff's doctoral training in glacial geology and glaciology, at the University of Minnesota, focused on the reconstruction of the physical dimensions and glaciological behavior of the Pleistocene ice lobes in a mid-continental setting. From systematic variations in till composition and from structural fabrics of an 8000 km2 till sheet, the thermal character and ice-lobe flow behavior were deduced for a type of ice mass for which no modern analogue exists. His current research, with both field and analyitical components, investigates the nature of the Puget ice lobe during its Late Wisconsin advances, and compares this presumably temperate ice mass in a maritime environment with more continental ice lobes of eastern Washington and the Great Lakes Lowland. In the Northern Puget Lowland, work is now in progress to determine if a late-glacial, non-climatically induced advance of the Puget lobe constitutes an example of surging behavior.
In addition to investigations of Pleistocene ice-lobe behavior, Stan Chernicoff is currently involved in other aspects of glacial geology. In a project funded by the National Geographic Society, Late Holocene moraines in the Peruvian Andes are being dated to determine if Holocene advances in the southern hemisphere were synchronous with northern-hemispheric events. And in an interdisciplinary project involving archeologists and geoarcheologists, lacustrine sediments in the Ohio River basin deposited during damming of fluvial drainage systems by Late Pleistocene glacial advances are being analyzed mineralogically and by scanning electron microscopy to distinguish glacial from non-glacial provenance.
Selected Publications:
Chernicoff, S. E., 1983,
Glacial characteristics of a Pleistocene ice lobe in east-central Minnesota.
Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 94, p. 1401-1414.
Chernicoff, S. E., 1983, Using isotropic magnetic susceptibility to investigate genetic variations in glacial till, Journal of Geology, v. 91, p. 113-118.
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Earth and Space Sciences (Geology, Geophysics, Geological Sciences) University of Washington Johnson Hall 070 • Box 351310 4000 15th Avenue NE • Seattle, WA 98195-1310 Phone 206-543-1190 • Fax 206-543-0489 • Site Info: webmaster@ess.washington.edu • ESS Advising: advising@ess.washington.edu |