The work performed can be divided into two areas: (i) the chemical characterisation of subglacial meltwaters from the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and from Chilean Patagonian, and (ii) the fate of iron, dissolved organic matter and associated trace elements exported from ice sheets and glaciers in near-coastal marine environments. Two initial publications reviewed the state of the art (Raiswell, Hawkings et al., 2018; Wadham, Hawkings et al., 2019) providing context and agenda for the the project. Three further publications (Pryer, Hawkings et al., 2020 a and b, Marshall, Hawkings et al., 2021) detail the first data on iron, silicon and DOM speciation in rivers/fjords draining regions of variable glacier cover in Patagonia. Catchments with high glacier cover produced rivers with higher concentrations of dissolved and particulate iron, with implications for future retreat of glacial cover on the cycling of this element. These studies produced the first budgets of iron export from rivers to fjord systems in Patagonia, and demonstrated the importance of sampling methodology in elemental concentrations from rivers. Hawkings et al. (2020), published in PNAS, provides the first data on trace element concentrations in Greenland and Antarctic meltwaters, with large implications for how we understand these systems as part of global elemental cycles, particularly natural mining of micronutrients from rock. A further publication, Hawkings et al. (2021), in Nature Geosciences, documents the first mercury concentrations and association with organic matter (as methylmercury) from the Greenland Ice Sheet. Multiple other papers (including 7 so far in 2021) further detail the role of glaciers in elemental cycling. The work from this fellowship has cumulated in an invited commentary for the American Geophysical Union journal JGR: Biogeosciences, summarising the role of glaciers in coastal elemental cycling and pointing the way forward for future research (Hawkings, in press).
