Dr Joanna Szafraniec’s research focused on the kettle holes on Skeiðarársandur (Southern Iceland). Their formation is associated with melting buried ice blocks, broken off from the glacier front during glacial floods (jökulhlaup).
These landforms are effective sediment traps for aeolian material, where this material can accumulate. Under the contemporary climate warming, younger depressions (~30 years old) accumulate an average of 5,000–7,400 g m–2 of sediment annually before vegetation encroaches. This material is several times greater than outside the depressions and 6–44 times greater than in older, plant-covered depressions (~90–130 years old), where accumulation drops to almost zero.
The research results help better understand how ecosystems changed at the end of the Pleistocene in response to climate warming. Analysis of wind-blown sediment layers in similar landforms in the Polish Lowlands, their dating, and description will allow us to determine the timing of the disintegration of the ice sheet and the buried post-flood ice blocks. It will be achieved by identifying changes in the way sediments were transported by the wind (from saltation to suspension), the timing of vegetation emergence (which is associated with the end of glacial floods), and the transition from tundra to forest conditions in the northern part of Poland.
The research was financed by the National Science Centre Miniatura 5 project, no. 2021/05/X/ST10/00710 “Development of a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) of kettle holes of glacial flood origin on Skeiðarársandur (S Iceland)” and with the support of the Director of the Institute of Earth Sciences of the University of Silesia in Katowice. Research activities were also supported by funds allocated under the Research Excellence Initiative V, University of Silesia in Katowice.
Author: dr Joanna Ewa Szafraniec
Source: Szafraniec J.E. 2025. Aeolian accumulation rate within the kettle holes on Skeiðarársandur (S Iceland) under climate warming conditions. Scientific Reports 15, 22622. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-07346-2.
Data: Szafraniec J.E. 2025. Data sets of annual aeolian accumulation rate in Skeiðarársandur kettle holes (S Iceland) in 2021/2022–2023/2024 (Ver. 1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14852374.
