Jenna Rolle
Determining controls on snowpack and soil isotopic spatial heterogeneity
Snow accumulation, storage, and melt play an essential role in the hydrological processes of snow-dominated mountainous catchments. Low evapotranspiration rates during the winter months make groundwater recharge processes more sensitive to snow inputs than rainfall. Stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen are used as environmental tracers to track snow inputs as they move through hydrologic systems. Isotopic fractionation leads to a lighter isotopic ratio in snow than rainfall, and the two can be traced independently as they move through the subsurface and into surface water reservoirs. This distinction between the two precipitation inputs allows researchers to gauge how changing snow budgets and dynamics will affect water resources in montane catchments.
Jenna Rolle is a MS student in the Geosciences Department at University of Montana. She researches spatial controls on snow isotopic signature and how the snowmelt pulse propagates through the subsurface in two headwater catchments. She hopes to use this information to refine sampling techniques for snow isotopic signatures and help study the impacts of dwindling snowpack resources on valley aquifer systems common in the Northern Rockies.