| Summary: | Degree: Master of Science Abstract: This thesis examines the hydrological characteristics of West Washmawapta Glacier, an overdeepened cirque glacier located in the Vermillion Range, B.C., Canada. Fieldwork involved drilling nine boreholes, which were surveyed with a borehole camera and instrumented with combinations of pressure transducers, thermistors and electrical conductivity sensors. Results show the cirque hydrology consisted of a predominantly subglacial, distributed drainage system. Hydraulic jacking occurred within the overdeepened region in both the summers of 2007 and 2008. Hydrological shut-down occurred very late, potentially due to the effect of the riegel on basal drainage, preventing flow out of the overdeepening at lower water pressures. Basal water temperatures were observed to fluctuate diurnally (up to 0.8^0C) above the local pressure melting point, likely due to influx of geothermally-heated groundwater and insulation of water within a sediment aquifer. Varying basal water pressures and temperatures suggest that hydraulic potential and supercooling effects are often over-simplified in glacier studies.
|
|---|