The West Norwegian Fjords are the reference point for fjords around the world. One such fjord is Geiranger, which features in this week’s Imaggeo on Mondays. The geological setting of Geirangerfjord – and its climate – has earned the area a spot on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. During the last ice age, much of northern Europe was glaciated; covered by a large ice sheet known as the Fennoscandian I ...[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Geosciences Column: Getting a handle on glacial lakes
Glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) are caused when masses of meltwater are released from behind a glacier moraine. Moraines are piles of unconsolidated debris that have either eroded from the glacier valley or have been deposited by melting glaciers. When they fail, a huge volume of water can be released, threatening populations further down the valley. Moraine failure can be caused by avalanche ...[Read More]
Geosciences column: Playing back the Antarctic ice records
Satellites are keeping tabs on the state of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, and have observed considerable declines in ice extent in many areas since records began, but what do we know of past sea ice extent? Ice cores keep an excellent record of climate change, but until recently, ice cores have not been used to quantify patterns in past sea ice extent because few reliable compounds are preserved i ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Autofluorescence in polar regions – how and why?
Marine picoplankton, <2 µm, are one of the most ubiquitous fauna in the open ocean. These marine microorganisms are hugely important – being responsible for a significant proportion of oceanic net primary productivity. Researchers are able to track the evolution of their genomes and the transportation of these microorganisms by analysing ice cores, which offer the potential to study the evoluti ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Monitoring the melt
Automatic weather stations (AWS) play a prominent role in making meteorological measurements in remote areas. These measurements can feed into climate models; providing better projections for rainfall, temperature and more. This peculiarly perched piece of equipment is just such a weather station: Out in the Swiss Alps, this AWS is making measurements of temperature, precipitation, wind speed, rel ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Capping a volcano
This is Damavand Volcano, Iran. Its history is one of short bursts of eruptive activity followed by long periods of quiescence and while there are active fumaroles near Damavand’s summit, the volcano has been dormant for the past 1000 years. The cloud that encircles its peak is known as a cap cloud, so-called because these peculiar clouds form around high peaks, adding a flat white cap to mountain ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Getting a handle on Greenland’s glaciers
The picture below shows several small glaciers surrounding the Greenland ice sheet, in Tassilaq, near Kulusuk, East Greenland. The dark lines are glacial moraines, responsible for the transport of rock material from mountains towards sea. The photographer, Romain Schläppy, highlights that “an important scientific topic consists to place the recent and ongoing Greenland warming in the broader conte ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Mendenhall Glacier
Much of the Mendenhall River Basin is glaciated; indeed, the river flows out from under a glacier in the northern part of the valley and into a lake. This glacier, rather aptly, is known as Mendenhall Glacier, a 19 km long lake-calving monster in Alaska, USA. Meltwater from this glacier makes up the primary source of water for Mendenhall River, although several creeks also contribute to the flow, ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Vanishing Lakes and Dry Arctic Landscapes
The Koukdjuak Plains (south-west Baffin Island, Canada) form a vast postglacial marine plain that borders the Foxe Basin, an area that has been progressively uplifted due to glacio-isostatic rebound following the end of the last glaciation about 6600 years ago. The weight of glaciers on the Earth’s crust causes the ground to be depressed, which, once the glacier melts, bounces back (at a geologica ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Great Glacial Folds
Whether you’re climbing, hiking or caving, it’s hard to ignore the geology around you. For keen climber and environmental geoscientist Ivan Bour, a trip to the French Alps is no exception… I’ve practiced mountain climbing for a dozen years. During my ascents, I seek geomorphological and geological peculiarities. Very often, I associate my profession as a geologist with my activities in the high mo ...[Read More]