Image: Majestic Mount Melbourne, an active volcano in northern Victoria Land; Shield Nunatak in the foreground, erupted subglacially 63 ka ago
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John Smellie
email: jls55[at]le.ac.uk
John Smellie is a volcanologist with principal interests in glaciovolcanism (eruptions beneath ice sheets) and its application to palaeo-ice sheet reconstruction. Prior to moving to Leicester University (UK) in 2010 he spent 35 years working for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), principally as Senior Volcanologist and Leader of many projects. Although his major geographical focus was initially the Antarctic Peninsula region, he has worked mainly on volcanic and any associated glacial sedimentary rocks right across Antarctica, including the sub-Antarctic active volcanic South Sandwich Islands, very remote Marie Byrd Land and East Antarctica (Victoria Land & Transantarctic Mtns). In addition he has worked extensively on glaciovolcanic rocks in Iceland. A prolific author, he has > 200 publications and is editor or co-editor of 13 scientific volumes. (See also HIGHLIGHTS, below). He is also sole author of an invited comprehensive review of the geology of the entire Antarctic Peninsula region, the first major account for 30 years (published 2021; see PUBLICATIONS).
He has successfully completed 27 field seasons in Antarctica (including as Chief Scientist on two Antarctic cruises) and 10 in Iceland; was awarded two Polar Medals for his scientific research (by Her Majesty the Queen [UK; 1986] and by King Charles [UK; 2023]); has Antarctic Service Medals from the American and Italian Antarctic Programmes; has three geographical places in Antarctica named after him (by UK and Spain); is co-founder & past Chair of the IAVCEI-IACS Commission on Volcano-Ice interactions (https://viic.iavceivolcano.org/AntVolc) and the SCAR Expert Group on Antarctic Volcanism [https://antvolcscar.wordpress.com/]; served on the UK National Committee for Antarctic Research; was the Earth Sciences Editor for the journal Antarctic Science; and is a member of the Editorial Board of Bulletin of Volcanology. In addition to his Leicester professorship, he has also held an honorary chair at Lancaster University and a Departmental Research Fellowship at Aberystwyth University.
Current research activities are focused on collaborative studies with geologists of the Italian, American and New Zealand Antarctic programmes aimed mainly at reconstructing critical parameters of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet during the past 20 million years.
Image: Daniell Peninsula, northern Victoria Land, Miocene glaciovolcanics
HIGHLIGHTS
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Definitive account of the morphometry of glaciovolcanic landforms accepted for publication: see Smellie, J.L. (In press) Quaternary vulcanism: Glaciovolcanic landforms. In: Elias S.A. (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science (Third Edition), Vol. 1. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Full-colour educational booklet on Antarctica’s volcanism published [2022], aimed at primary school-age children aged 8-10 yrs. Free to download at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6535775
Major volume on Antarctica's volcanism published: This volume, published as a prestigious Geological Society Memoir, is the first to review all of Antarctica’s volcanism, going back to 200 Ma. Antarctica is still volcanically active. The volume is an amalgamation of in-depth syntheses, which are presented within several distinctively different tectonic settings. Each is described in terms of (1) the volcanology and eruptive palaoenvironments; (2) petrology; and (3) active volcanism, including tephrochronology. There are 31 chapters, involving 56 different authors and co-authors from 8 countries. Each chapter comprises comprehensive descriptions and up-to-the-minute reviews, supported by abundant photographic and diagrammatic illustrations, maps and comprehensive geochemical & isotopic age datasets. [Smellie, J.L., Panter, K.S. and Geyer, A. (eds) Volcanism in Antarctica: 200 million years of subduction, rifting & continental break-up. Geol. Soc., Lond., Mem. 55, 824 pp.] see (https://www.lyellcollection.org/toc/mem/55/1)
First comprehensive assessment of glaciovolcanism as the most holistic palaeo-ice proxy: See Smellie, J.L. 2018. Glaciovolcanism - a 21st century proxy for palaeo-ice. In Menzies, J. and van der Meer, J.J.M. (eds) Past glacial environments (sediments, forms and techniques), 2nd edition. Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands, pp. 335-375. [ISBN: 978-0-08-100524-8]
First textbook on Glaciovolcanism published: Smellie, J.L. and Edwards, B.E. 2016. Glaciovolcanism on Earth & Mars. Products, processes and palaeoenvironmental significance. Cambridge University Press, 483 pp. See www.cambridge.org/glaciovolcanism
Paradigm-shifting glaciovolcanic studies resolve a 30 year-old debate about the evolution of thermal regime of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet: See Smellie/Rocchi/Wilch/Gemelli/Di Vincenzo/McIntosh/Dunbar/Panter & Fargo. "Glaciovolcanic evidence for a polythermal Neogene East Antarctic Ice Sheet". Published in Geology, 42, 39-41 (2014).
Or see outreach version: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20220214162814/https://nerc.ukri.org/latest/publications/planetearth/archive/