Vibrations of Mertz glacier ice tongue, East Antarctica
At the time of its calving in February 2010, Mertz Glacier, East Antarctica, was characterized by a 145km long, 35km wide floating tongue. In this paper, we use GPS data from the Collaborative Research into Antarctic Calving and Iceberg Evolution (CRAC-ICE) 2007/08 and 2009/10 field seasons to inves...
Published in: | Journal of Glaciology |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Int Glaciol Soc
2012
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00140/25136/23246.pdf https://doi.org/10.3189/2012JoG11J089 https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00140/25136/ |
Summary: | At the time of its calving in February 2010, Mertz Glacier, East Antarctica, was characterized by a 145km long, 35km wide floating tongue. In this paper, we use GPS data from the Collaborative Research into Antarctic Calving and Iceberg Evolution (CRAC-ICE) 2007/08 and 2009/10 field seasons to investigate the dynamics of Mertz Glacier. Twomonths of data were collected at the end of the 2007/08 field season from two kinematic GPS stations situated on each side of the main rift of the glacier tongue and from rock stations located around the ice tongue during 2008/09. Using Precise Point Positioning with integer ambiguity fixing, we observe that the two GPS stations recorded vibrations of the ice tongue with several dominant periods. We compare these results with a simple elastic model of the ice tongue and find that the natural vibration frequencies are similar to those observed. This information provides a better understanding of their possible effects on rift propagation and hence on the glacier calving processes. |
---|