Hard rock landforms generate 130 km ice shelf channels through water focusing in basal corrugations
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Satellite imagery reveals flowstripes on Foundation Ice Stream parallel to ice flow, and meandering features on the ice-shelf that cross-cut ice flow and are thought to be formed by water exiting a well-organised s...
| Published in: | Nature Communications |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
| Published: |
Nature Research
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1808/30944 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06679-z |
| Summary: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Satellite imagery reveals flowstripes on Foundation Ice Stream parallel to ice flow, and meandering features on the ice-shelf that cross-cut ice flow and are thought to be formed by water exiting a well-organised subglacial system. Here, ice-penetrating radar data show flow-parallel hard-bed landforms beneath the grounded ice, and channels incised upwards into the ice shelf beneath meandering surface channels. As the ice transitions to flotation, the ice shelf incorporates a corrugation resulting from the landforms. Radar reveals the presence of subglacial water alongside the landforms, indicating a well-organised drainage system in which water exits the ice sheet as a point source, mixes with cavity water and incises upwards into a corrugation peak, accentuating the corrugation downstream. Hard-bedded landforms influence both subglacial hydrology and ice-shelf structure and, as they are known to be widespread on formerly glaciated terrain, their influence on the ice-sheet-shelf transition could be more widespread than thought previously. NASA grant # NNX10AT68G ANT # NT-0424589 University of Kansas UK NERC AFI grant NE/G013071/1 |
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