Hadley Blodgett, a senior at Bates College from Buckfield, Maine, is examining ancient climate patterns by analyzing sediment cores from an Arctic lake in northern Greenland. Working under the supervision of Associate Professor Nick Balascio, Blodgett’s research is part of her thesis in earth and climate sciences.
Blodgett describes her experience with the samples as striking. “To think about the scale of what’s in front of me is just kind of crazy,” she says.
The sediment cores being studied were collected as part of the Wandel Dal Project, an international research effort led by Balascio and supported by a National Science Foundation grant. The project focuses on Wandel Dal, a remote Arctic desert valley located less than 500 miles from the North Pole in Greenland’s Peary Land region. According to Balascio, these lake sediments serve as historical records: “Those lakes are natural history books that record what’s going on around the watershed of the lake as well as within the lake itself.”
The Wandel Dal area has seen periods of human habitation and abandonment over 4,500 years by three distinct groups. Researchers believe these population shifts coincided with changes in climate conditions. “These are people with stone tool technology living in a pretty harsh and foreboding environment,” Balascio says.
Understanding how past climates affected human activity in this region can inform current studies about rapid warming trends observed in the Arctic today. Balascio notes that data from high Arctic regions like Peary Land are limited: “There is very little coverage of this high Arctic region in terms of what we know about the past climate history. It’s right at the margins of the Greenland ice sheet, so understanding the sensitivity to climate change is really important.”
During summer 2024, Balascio and colleagues traveled through Norway and Greenland to reach their field site, where they extracted six-meter-long sediment samples from deep lakes using inflatable rafts and coring equipment. These samples are now stored at Bates College for ongoing analysis by students including Blodgett and others such as Fletcher Libre and Zach Van Dusen.
Blodgett visited Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, for Greenland Science Week in November 2025 thanks to funding provided through Balascio’s NSF grant supporting student research. She presented her findings during both conference sessions and community outreach events.
Her research revealed notable differences near the top layer of one core sample—denser layers appeared throughout most sections but shifted dramatically within four centimeters from the surface. Blodgett suspects this change may reflect recent anthropogenic impacts on climate: “Something in the climate is causing the environment to react in such a way that it makes this sediment deposit in a different way than it has for the entire rest of the record.”
Originally intending to major in history before shifting focus after taking a soil geography course at Bates, Blodgett says she values learning about land use both scientifically and culturally: “I definitely have an appreciation for just how important [the land] can be culturally and the need to treat it with respect.”
Respect for cultural heritage is also central to current work within Peary Land. The Wandel Dal Project supports efforts led by archaeologists and local institutions—including renaming initiatives spearheaded by Greenland National Museum—to recognize indigenous significance; Peary Land may become known as “Inutoqqat Nunaat,” or “land of ancient people” in Greenlandic.
Reflecting on his career path integrating archaeological perspectives into paleoclimate studies across multiple continents, Balascio comments: “Working with archaeologists…became a very enriching experience and gave me a new perspective on this field of study that I had been working on previously for a decade.”
Blodgett adds that direct engagement with communities during scientific outreach helped her reconnect science with its broader social context: “You get so disconnected from the ‘people part’ sometimes in climate science, even though people are such an important part of it.”
As she considers graduate school options post-graduation—and credits faculty mentorship—Blodgett concludes: “No matter where I end up after May…the trajectory of my career has been changed because of guidance shown to me by Professor Balascio and so many essential people in the Bates community.”
This research was supported by National Science Foundation grants awarded to Bates College (2524995) and College of William & Mary (2126047). The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of NSF.
