Souther's studies in 1992 highlighted the importance and size of the region, and proposed that numerous subglacial eruptions emplaced lava in a sub-ice or ice-contact environment. More recent studies have worked on Souther's contributions with more detailed studies which are funded by colleges and universities. Since colleges and universities started studying the Mount Edziza volcanic complex, it has been an extremely important volcano for subglacial volcanism because its ice-contact lavas record evidence of ice existence and thickness in an area for which there is very little data on ice conditions before the Illinoian Stage of glaciation, which preceded the last glacial, or Wisconsin, period. Several areas of possible basaltic and trachytic ice-contact products were studied in detail on the western flank of the Mount Edziza volcanic complex, in order to approve their ice-contact nature, and to eventually better constrain former ice existence and thickness. Its lava plateau has also been an important cultural resource. In 2006, Jeff Hungerford, a student of the University of Pittsburgh in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, United States, focused on fieldwork on the region surrounding Edziza's Tennena Cone, located immediately west of Ice Peak which formed subglacially during the early Holocene period when this area had remnants of glacial ice from the last ice age. Hungerford's studies in 2006 focused on subglacial volcanism, sampling pillow lavas to be used for degassing studies aimed at determining ice thicknesses during a subglacial eruption, and describing coeval glaciogenic sediments immediately underlying pillow lavas at the distal end of the lava flows. Hungerford also worked on describing glaciogenic sediments immediately underlying lava flows from Ice Peak adjacent to Tennena Cone, which may preserve a record of a one-million-year-old ice sheet.