Benjamin Stoker

BIOGRAPHY:

I'm a postdoctoral research fellow at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and I am interested in using glacial geomorphology and geochronology to investigate the mechanisms of past ice sheet retreat. At Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory I am working with Jacky Austermann, Nicolás Young, and Jonny Kingslake to reconstruct the proglacial lakes that formed along the margin of the ice sheets that covered North America during the last glaciation (25,000 years ago to the present day). In this work I will combine geological observations with numerical modelling simulations of glacial lake evolution to better understand whether glacial lakes can drive the rapid retreat of ice sheet margins. 

My previous research has spanned North America, the British Isles and Svalbard. During my master's research, I investigated the drainage system beneath the former Irish Ice Sheet using ground penetrating radar and and high-resolution geomorphological mapping. While my PhD research focused on understanding the instability mechanisms that may have drove the retreat of the northwestern sector of the Laurentide Ice Sheet in the Northwest Territories, Canada, using a combination of cosmogenic nuclide dating and glacial geomorphological mapping.