Glacier-Permafrost interactions, debris transfer mechanisms and the development of distinctive sediment-landform associations in a High Arctic glacial environment: the case of Fountain Glacier, Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada

• Main Authors: Waller, R, Hambrey, M, Moorman, B
• Other Authors: Gunther, F, Morgenstern, A
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Bibliothek Wissenschaftspark Albert Einstein 2016
• Subjects: GB Physical geography; Arctic; Bylot Island; Canada; Fountain Glacier; Nunavut; glacier*; Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: https://eprints.keele.ac.uk/id/eprint/2576/; https://media.gfz-potsdam.de/bib/ICOP/ICOP_2016_Book_of_Abstracts.pdf; https://doi.org/10.2312/GFZ.LIS.2016.001

Detailed investigations of the sediment-landform associations being actively created in modern-day periglacial environments provide the opportunity to constrain the linkages between process and form that underpin palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. Glacial geomorphologists have commonly assumed that cold-based and polythermal glaciers underlain by permafrost are slow moving, geomorphologically inactive and therefore of limited research interest. However, recent research in both modern and ancient periglacial environments has illustrated the ability of glaciers and permafrost to couple and interact, leading to the operation of distinctive processes and the development of distinctive sediment-landform associations. Despite this, our knowledge and understanding of the mechanisms of debris transfer, the characteristics of the associated sediments and the diversity of geomorphic features associated with High Arctic glacial environments remain limited. This research describes the distinctive landforms, lithofacies and sediment-landform associations characteristic of an Arctic outlet glacier on Bylot Island in the Canadian High Arctic. The island features a mountainous central icefield from which a series of outlet-glaciers flow towards the coastal lowlands. With a mean annual air temperature of approximately -15°C, these glaciers terminate in an area of continuous permafrost estimated to be between 200-400 m in thickness. As such it constitutes an ideal location in which to examine the geomorphic processes and products associated with glacier-permafrost interactions. The observations reported were made primarily at the margin and foreland of Fountain Glacier, a polythermal glacier 16 km in length associated with a core of warm ice covered by a layer of cold ice that extends to the glacier margins. Field observation and mapping showed the glacier margin to be characterised by a distinctive landform assemblage comprising boulder-dominated surfaces and moraine ridges (a number of which were ice-cored), areas of heavily ...