Glaciology Commons^™

Morphology And Dynamics Of The Rock Glaciers In Southern Victoria Land, Antarctica, Jon M. Hassinger, Paul Andrew Mayewski

Earth Science Faculty Scholarship

A baseline study of rock glaciers located in the ice-free valleys of southern Victoria Land, Antarctica, was performed in order to determine their usefulness as proxy tools in studies of climatic change. The distribution of the 32 rock glaciers identified in this analysis is principally attributed to site-specific controls including proximity to localized moisture sources and low ambient site temperature controlled by elevation, orientation, and topographic shading. The relative activity of rock glaciers and their vertical velocity profiles are inferred from termini morphology. Thirty-eight percent of the rock glaciers are stagnant, 41% show velocity decreasing rapidly with depth, and velocity …