About

Benjamin Keisling is a Research Assistant Professor at the UT Institute for Geophysics. His research interests include past climate, ice sheet dynamics, and justice in geoscience. His work focuses on understanding climate processes related to ice sheets and their historical and future impacts, contributing to the broader understanding of climate change and glaciology.

Research topics

• Geology
• Paleontology
• Astrobiology
• Computer Science
• Atmospheric sciences
• Oceanography
• Nuclear physics
• Earth science
• Biology
• Archaeology
• Environmental science
• Data science
• Geography
• Physics

Selected publications

• Spatially variable response of Antarctica’s ice sheets to orbital forcing during the Pliocene

  Nature Geoscience · 2026-01-02

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Deglaciation of the Prudhoe Dome in northwestern Greenland in response to Holocene warming

  Nature Geoscience · 2026-01-05

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Reply on RC2

  2025-08-25

  peer-reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  <strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> The contribution of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) to sea level rise (SLR) is accelerating and there is an urgent need to improve predictions of when and from what parts of the ice sheet Greenland will contribute its first meter. Estimating the volume of Greenland ice that was lost during past warm periods offers a way to constrain the ice sheet&rsquo;s response to future warming. Sub-ice sediment and bedrock, retrieved from deep ice core campaigns or targeted drilling efforts, yield critical and direct information about past ice-free conditions. However, it is challenging to scale the few available sub-ice point measurements to the geometry of the entire ice sheet. Here, we provide a framework for assessing sea-level potential, which we define as the amount the GIS has contributed to sea level when a particular location in Greenland is ice-free, from an ensemble of ice-sheet model simulations representing a wide range of plausible deglaciation scenarios. An assessment of dominant sources of uncertainty in our paleo ice sheet modelling, including climate forcing, ice-sheet initialization, and solid-Earth properties, reveals spatial patterns in the sensitivity of the ice sheet to these processes and related feedbacks. We find that the sea-level potential of central Greenland is most sensitive to lithospheric feedbacks and ice-sheet initialization, whereas the ice-sheet margins are most sensitive to climate forcing parameters. Our framework allows us to quantify the local and regional uncertainty in sea-level potential, which we use to evaluate the GIS bedrock according to the usefulness of information sub-ice sediments and bedrock provide about past ice-sheet geometry. Through our ensemble approach, we can assign a plausible range of GIS contributions to global sea level for deglaciated conditions at any site. Our results identify primarily areas in southwest Greenland, and secondarily north Greenland, as best-suited for subglacial access drilling that seeks to constrain the response of the ice sheet to past and future warming.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reply on RC1

  2025-08-25

  peer-reviewOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  <strong class="journal-contentHeaderColor">Abstract.</strong> The contribution of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) to sea level rise (SLR) is accelerating and there is an urgent need to improve predictions of when and from what parts of the ice sheet Greenland will contribute its first meter. Estimating the volume of Greenland ice that was lost during past warm periods offers a way to constrain the ice sheet&rsquo;s response to future warming. Sub-ice sediment and bedrock, retrieved from deep ice core campaigns or targeted drilling efforts, yield critical and direct information about past ice-free conditions. However, it is challenging to scale the few available sub-ice point measurements to the geometry of the entire ice sheet. Here, we provide a framework for assessing sea-level potential, which we define as the amount the GIS has contributed to sea level when a particular location in Greenland is ice-free, from an ensemble of ice-sheet model simulations representing a wide range of plausible deglaciation scenarios. An assessment of dominant sources of uncertainty in our paleo ice sheet modelling, including climate forcing, ice-sheet initialization, and solid-Earth properties, reveals spatial patterns in the sensitivity of the ice sheet to these processes and related feedbacks. We find that the sea-level potential of central Greenland is most sensitive to lithospheric feedbacks and ice-sheet initialization, whereas the ice-sheet margins are most sensitive to climate forcing parameters. Our framework allows us to quantify the local and regional uncertainty in sea-level potential, which we use to evaluate the GIS bedrock according to the usefulness of information sub-ice sediments and bedrock provide about past ice-sheet geometry. Through our ensemble approach, we can assign a plausible range of GIS contributions to global sea level for deglaciated conditions at any site. Our results identify primarily areas in southwest Greenland, and secondarily north Greenland, as best-suited for subglacial access drilling that seeks to constrain the response of the ice sheet to past and future warming.

  PublisherDOI

• Holocene deglaciation of Prudhoe Dome, northwest Greenland

  2025-05-15 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Projections of future sea-level rise benefit from understanding the response of past ice sheets to interglacial warmth. Constraints on the extent of inland Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) recession during the Middle Holocene (~8 – 4 ka) are limited because geological records of a smaller-than-modern phase largely remain beneath the modern ice sheet. We drilled through 509 m of firn and ice at Prudhoe Dome (PD), northwest Greenland to obtain sub-ice material yielding direct evidence for the response of the NW GrIS to Holocene warmth. Our infrared stimulated luminescence measurements from sub-ice sediments indicates that the ground below the summit was exposed to sunlight at 7.1 ± 1.1 ka. This complete deglaciation of PD, coeval to reduced extent at other ice caps across Northern Greenland, is further supported by interglacial-only δ18O values from the PD ice column as well as ice depth-age modeling. Our results point to a significant response of the NW GrIS to early Holocene warming, estimated to be +3–5 ℃ from paleoclimate data. This range of summer temperatures is similar to projections of warming by 2100 CE.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Miocene ice sheet dynamics and sediment deposition in the central Ross Sea, Antarctica

  Geological Society of America Bulletin · 2024-10-09 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Drill cores from the Antarctic continental shelf are essential for directly constraining changes in past Antarctic Ice Sheet extent. Here, we provide a sedimentary facies analysis of drill cores from International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Site U1521 in the Ross Sea, which reveals a unique, detailed snapshot of Antarctic Ice Sheet evolution between ca. 18 Ma and 13 Ma. We identify distinct depositional packages, each of which contains facies successions that are reflective of past baseline shifts in the presence or absence of marine-terminating ice sheets on the outermost Ross Sea continental shelf. The oldest depositional package (&amp;gt;18 Ma) contains massive diamictites stacked through aggradation and deposited in a deep, actively subsiding basin that restricted marine ice sheet expansion on the outer continental shelf. A slowdown in tectonic subsidence after 17.8 Ma led to the deposition of progradational massive diamictites with thin mudstone beds/laminae, as several large marine-based ice sheet advances expanded onto the mid- to outer continental shelf between 17.8 Ma and 17.4 Ma. Between 17.2 Ma and 15.95 Ma, packages of interbedded diamictite and diatom-rich mudstone were deposited during a phase of highly variable Antarctic Ice Sheet extent and volume. This included periods of Antarctic Ice Sheet advance near the outer shelf during the early Miocene Climate Optimum (MCO)—despite this being a well-known period of peak global warmth between ca. 17.0 Ma and 14.6 Ma. Conversely, there were periods of peak warmth within the MCO during which diatom-rich mudstones with little to no ice-rafted debris were deposited, which indicates that the Antarctic Ice Sheet was greatly reduced in extent and had retreated to a smaller terrestrial-terminating ice sheet, most notably between 16.3 Ma and 15.95 Ma. Post-14.2 Ma, diamictites and diatomites contain unambiguous evidence of subglacial shearing in the core and provide the first direct, well-dated evidence of highly erosive marine ice sheets on the outermost continental shelf during the onset of the Middle Miocene Climate Transition (MMCT; 14.2–13.6 Ma). Although global climate forcings and feedbacks influenced Antarctic Ice Sheet advances and retreats during the MCO and MMCT, we propose that this response was nonlinear and heavily influenced by regional feedbacks related to the shoaling of the continental shelf due to reduced subsidence, sediment infilling, and local sea-level changes that directly influenced oceanic influences on melting at the Antarctic Ice Sheet margin. Although intervals of diatom-rich muds and diatomite indicating open-marine interglacial conditions still occurred during (and following) the MMCT, repeated advances of marine-based ice sheets since that time have resulted in widespread erosion and overdeepening in the inner Ross Sea, which has greatly enhanced sensitivity to marine ice sheet instability since 14.2 Ma.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reduced magnitude of Early Pleistocene intensification of Northern Hemisphere Glaciation

  Quaternary Science Reviews · 2024-12-03 · 3 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• An ice-sheet modelling framework for leveraging sub-ice drilling to assess sea level potential applied to Greenland

  2024-08-08

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract. The contribution of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) to sea level rise (SLR) is accelerating and there is an urgent need to improve predictions of when and from what parts of the ice sheet Greenland will contribute its first meter. Estimating the volume of Greenland ice that was lost during past warm periods offers a way to constrain the ice sheet’s response to future warming. Sub-ice sediment and bedrock, retrieved from deep ice core campaigns or targeted drilling efforts, yield critical and direct information about past ice-free conditions. However, it is challenging to scale the few available sub-ice point measurements to the geometry of the entire ice sheet. Here, we provide a framework for assessing sea-level potential, which we define as the amount the GIS has contributed to sea level when a particular location in Greenland is ice-free, from an ensemble of ice-sheet model simulations representing a wide range of plausible deglaciation scenarios. An assessment of dominant sources of uncertainty in our paleo ice sheet modelling, including climate forcing, ice-sheet initialization, and solid-Earth properties, reveals spatial patterns in the sensitivity of the ice sheet to these processes and related feedbacks. We find that the sea-level potential of central Greenland is most sensitive to lithospheric feedbacks and ice-sheet initialization, whereas the ice-sheet margins are most sensitive to climate forcing parameters. Our framework allows us to quantify the local and regional uncertainty in sea-level potential, which we use to evaluate the GIS bedrock according to the usefulness of information sub-ice sediments and bedrock provide about past ice-sheet geometry. Through our ensemble approach, we can assign a plausible range of GIS contributions to global sea level for deglaciated conditions at any site. Our results identify primarily areas in southwest Greenland, and secondarily north Greenland, as best-suited for subglacial access drilling that seeks to constrain the response of the ice sheet to past and future warming.

  PublisherDOI

• Spatially variable response of Antarctica's ice sheets to orbital forcing during the Pliocene

  Research Square · 2024-09-04 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Climate-controlled submarine landslides on the Antarctic continental margin

  Nature Communications · 2023-05-18 · 33 citations

  articleOpen access

  Antarctica's continental margins pose an unknown submarine landslide-generated tsunami risk to Southern Hemisphere populations and infrastructure. Understanding the factors driving slope failure is essential to assessing future geohazards. Here, we present a multidisciplinary study of a major submarine landslide complex along the eastern Ross Sea continental slope (Antarctica) that identifies preconditioning factors and failure mechanisms. Weak layers, identified beneath three submarine landslides, consist of distinct packages of interbedded Miocene- to Pliocene-age diatom oozes and glaciomarine diamicts. The observed lithological differences, which arise from glacial to interglacial variations in biological productivity, ice proximity, and ocean circulation, caused changes in sediment deposition that inherently preconditioned slope failure. These recurrent Antarctic submarine landslides were likely triggered by seismicity associated with glacioisostatic readjustment, leading to failure within the preconditioned weak layers. Ongoing climate warming and ice retreat may increase regional glacioisostatic seismicity, triggering Antarctic submarine landslides.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• François Beny

  Université de Lille

  132 shared

• Amelia Shevenell

  University of South Florida

  129 shared

• Laura De Santis

  University of Bari Aldo Moro

  128 shared

• Tim E. van Peer

  University of Southampton

  128 shared

• Imogen M. Browne

  University of South Florida St. Petersburg

  125 shared

• Osamu Seki

  Hokkaido University

  125 shared

• Denise K. Kulhanek

  Kiel University

  124 shared

• Tina van de Flierdt

  Imperial College London

  123 shared

Education

• Ph.D. , Geosciences

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  2019

• Visiting Ph.D. Fellow, Centre of Ice and Climate

  University of Copenhagen

  2017

• M.Sc. , Geosciences

  University of Massachusetts Amherst

  2015

• B.A. , Physics

  Saint Olaf College

  2013