On January 12 at 6:30 pm, Michael Retelle, Professor of Geology at Bates College (ME), will share information about Paleo-Climatology through his study of ice cores from the Arctic. Retelle did his undergraduate studies at Salem State College (BS, 1976) prior to working as a field geologist on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in 1976. He did his graduate work in Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. His primary research interests include glacial and marine environments and climate change in northern New England and in the Canadian and Norwegian arctic.
His talk will focus on the recent environmental history in Svalbard, Norway, with an emphasis on the alpine glacier history from the ice expansion during the Little Ice Age of the 14th to 19th Centuries to the retreat that began in the beginning of the 20th Century that has accelerated in recent decades. Svalbard is an extensively glaciated archipelago in the Norwegian high arctic that sits at the boundary of polar and North Atlantic waters, climatologically sensitive to shifts in ocean currents and related air masses, impacting regional sea ice and glacier extent.
This lecture is free and open to the public and will be held in Lyndon South Auditorium, Stroud Academic Center, 232 Front Street, Marion on January 12 at 6:30 pm.