UW-EC faculty, alumni partake in $2.8M study

The Leader-Telegram, Eau Claire, Wis.
·4 min read

Dec. 20—EAU CLAIRE — UW-Eau Claire geography faculty and several alumni have come together to join an interdisciplinary research team of experts that has received a $2.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study the physical geography and glacial geologic history of the Lake Superior basin.

Douglas Faulkner, a professor of geography, and Garry Running, professor emeritus of geography, are among seven funded collaborators focused on a portion of the project that supports the work of nine lead investigators at five different institutions, the university announced earlier this month.

During the fall 2022 semester, current and former UW-Eau Claire geography and geology students joined the research team.

According to the NSF, the project is a "multidisciplinary approach to better understand the shaping of this continental landscape. The research team is reconstructing how the geological past of the Lake Superior basin impacts ongoing uplift and tilting of the land surface as well as surface processes including river erosion."

Faulkner told the university the research will explain why rivers have the characteristics they do and why the land was shaped this way it is.

He added that part of the study will be to determine how the rivers were created, which contributes to the overall understanding of why the river systems in the Lake Superior region are different from those found in the Chippewa River region — all heavily influenced by the presence and retreat of glaciers from the region in the last 20,000 years.

Both Faulkner and Running point to the future implications to be examined as well, the university stated.

"None of the rivers in this region are done adjusting to the changes from the last ice age — they are still changing," Running said in the university news release. "If we know how they got to where they are today, we can also start to predict how they will likely change over time."

Faulkner also emphasized the potential global impact of the information sought in this study.

"This research will explain the post-glacial changes that took place in this region, but there are other regions still glaciated today that are rapidly deglaciating with global warming," Faulkner said. "As those glaciers melt away, this work can tell us what future changes we might expect to see in those places."

Running and Faulkner, along with Harry Jol, professor of geography at UW-Eau Claire, have collaborated since 2019 with several of the lead investigators on this grant, related to work they did conducting a 10-year study of the Chippewa River basin. That research project and the resulting publication, earned the trio a national award in 2019 from the Geomorphology Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers.

According to Running, that was around the time the UW-Eau Claire researchers began working with Andrew Wickert, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Minnesota. He is the University of Minnesota principal investigator and project director for the NSF grant focused on the Lake Superior basin.

Wickert is a geomorphologist who approaches geoscience through a quantitative, physics-based lens that he uses to explain how landscapes evolve through time, the university stated.

Also partnered with Wickert on the project is principal investigator Phillip Larson, professor and director of earth science programs and co-director of the EARTH Systems Laboratory at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Larson is a UW-Eau Claire alum who graduated in 2008 with a geography major and geology minor.

The portion of the project involving the UW-Eau Claire team is led by Larson's group. Running told the university this research will start by examining the Kettle, Brule and St. Croix rivers, which served as outlets of glacial meltwater from former lakes that resided in the Lake Superior basin when glaciers were in this region. One of the key tools among the arsenal of methods they will utilize to understand these rivers is ground-penetrating radar, a field in which Jol is a "world-renowned expert," Running said.

"Harry trained Phil Larson in GPR when he was an undergrad in our program," Running said. "Now Phil is teaching other Blugold alumni who are graduate students in his program at Mankato, two of whom will be collaborating on this new study. Since he's been there, we've actually created quite a little pipeline of students who take their Blugold degree and go on to Mankato to complete a master's in his program."

For Larson, this big multi-institution, multidisciplinary study is a rewarding full-circle moment.

{span}"The way this grant works is that each PI (principal investigator) has their own piece of the big puzzle to focus on, and Garry and Doug will be part of the team focused on my 'chunk,' doing fieldwork in the St. Croix River Valley, upper Peninsula of Michigan and on the North Shore of Lake Superior," Larson said.{/span}

In addition to Larson's former UW-Eau Claire professors on his team, 2022 UW-Eau Claire geography graduates Abigail Fischer and Hunter Delikowski, now enrolled in the Minnesota State University, Mankato, master's program, are funded by and will be collaborating on the grant.