Staff profile
Molly Gath
Biography
I am a postgraduate researcher interested in understanding the nexus of process glaciology and contemporary polar climate change: glacier and ice sheet strain histories, structural evolution and mechanisms controlling their forward movement in response to increasingly negative mass balances. Previous research has been oriented towards glacial processes at the ice-bed interface, utilising sedimentological and geomorphological analyses to interpret Icelandic modern analogues and dynamics of the last British-Irish Ice Sheet.
My Masters by Research focuses on the structural evolution of an active-temperate glacier in Iceland, quantifying changes to planar structures, surface flow regimes and patterns of debris entrainment over time. Using a landsystems approach, I employ historical aerial photographs alongside first-hand UAV imagery and detailed sedimentological analyses acquired on a field expedition to Iceland in summer 2025. This was supported by funding from the RGS Geographical Fieldwork Grant, Durham University Inspired Polar/Climate Change Scholarship and the departmental Graham Earp Scholarship.
Thesis title: "Structural evolution and ice facies sedimentology of an active-temperate glacier in Iceland: Sandfellsjökull, east Mýrdalsjökull.
Research interests
- Structural glaciology
- Glacial geology and sedimentology
- Contemporary climate-glacier dynamics
- Ice sheet and glacier reconstruction
- Field-based Quaternary research