These are the outwash plains for the Icelandic volcano, Katla: An outwash plain (or sandur) is a broad, shallowly sloping region ahead of a glacial front. They are made up of material that has been deposited by glacial meltwater, released either by geothermal heating or a subglacial eruption. The extensive volcanism and abundance of ice-capped volcanoes in southern Iceland means that the outwash p ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Storm in Mount Waddington
This week’s Imaggeo on Mondays is brought to you by the photographer herself, Marion Bisiaux (now at Stendhal University, Grenoble, France), who tells us about her exciting field trip to the British Columbia’s Coast Range. This picture was taken during the Waddington Range Ice Core Project in which I participated during my PhD at the University of Nevada, Reno, US and at the Desert Research Instit ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Melting ice
The speed and extent of Greenland’s ice sheet melt dominated the media over the summer, and for good reason. Dramatic satellite images showed that, in just a few days, 97% of the island’s ice sheet surface thawed, melting over a larger area than at any time in more than 30 years of satellite observations. Usually, during the summer only around half of the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet melts and ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: The power of ice
There has been a lot of talk about Greenland lately in the context of global climate change. And for good reason. Over 80% of its total surface is covered by ice, the volume of which exceeds 2,850,000 km3 or enough to raise global sea levels by a staggering 7 m if fully melted. The Greenland ice sheet consists of layers of compressed snow from over 100,000 years of snowfall. As a result, ice cores ...[Read More]