Ed Butler
Victoria University of Wellington, PhD

Process development and Holocene history of Antarctic beaches

The primary aim of this research is to determine how Antarctic beaches form. In Antarctica, the primary beach-forming agent is ice. The shoreline along the Victoria Land coast is ice-bound for up to 10 months of the year and a combination of waves and tides moving the ice in the nearshore will produce forms that are characteristic to polar beaches. The relative importance of any of these processes on the raised beaches along the Victoria Land coast will provide a palaeoenvironmental history of these beaches.

Publications
Butler, E.R.T Beaches in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Ph.D., Victoria University of Wellington. 2001.

Butler, E.R.T Process environments on modern and raised beaches in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. Marine geology 162: 105-120, 1999.