Dynamics of surging tidewater glaciers in Tempelfjorden, Spitsbergen

• Main Author: Flink, Anne
• Format: Bachelor Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för naturgeografi och kvartärgeologi (INK) 2013
• Subjects: tidewater glacier; surge; Spitsbergen; Physical Geography; Naturgeografi; Lomonosovfonna; Svalbard; Tempelfjorden; Tunabreen; Von Postbreen; glacier; Ice cap; Tempelfjord*; Tidewater
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-88458

Terrestrial glacial geomorphology has long been used to evaluate the extent, chronology and dynamics of former glaciers and ice sheets. New marine geophysical methods provide an opportunity to study the glacial submarine morphology of modern continental shelves and fjord systems. This makes it possible to study landform assemblages in the submarine settings that are often better preserved than their terrestrial counterparts. This study focuses mainly on the recent surge history of the tidewater glacier Tunabreen, which calves into Tempelfjorden in Western Spitsbergen. Tunabreen is a small outlet glacier of the Lomonosovfonna ice cap and has experienced severalsurges and terminal retreats during the last century. The multiple surge events havemost likely removed or reworked landform assemblages created by earlier surges,resulting in a complex geomorphological imprint on the bed of Tempelfjorden. Tunabreen has left a specific morphological imprint on the sea floor, consisting of iceflow‐parallel lineations and generally flow‐transverse retreat moraines. Comparisonof retreat moraines mapped from high resolution multibeam bathymetric data andglacier terminal positions, established using remote sensing imagery suggest that themoraines in the inner part of Tempelfjorden are annually formed recessionalmoraines, formed during winter still stands of the glacier margin or during its minorreadvances. Although detailed reconstruction of glacier surge dynamics based solelyon the landform distribution is challenging, it is evident that Tunabreen hasexperienced fast flow during surges and semiannual retreat of the margin after thesurges. The main achievements of this study are a spatial reconstruction of the dynamics ofTunabreen, which has experienced three surges during the last hundred years.Together with the Little Ice Age surge of the adjacent von Postbreen, four recentsurges have been recorded in Tempelfjorden since 1870, which distinguishes thestudy area from earlier studied Svalbard tidewater surge glacier settigs, ...