Proglacial sediments properties in High Arctic glacier foreland: A case study of Werenskioldbreen (Svalbard)

• Main Authors: Stachniak, Katarzyna, Janik, Krzysztof, Sitek, Sławomir
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2023
• Subjects: Climate change; glacier; Svalbard
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11104579

The glacier environment exhibit a high sensitivity to the global climate change leading to progressive deglaciation and the exposure of previously ice-covered land. The newly exposed terrain provides a valuable opportunity to observe rapid ecosystem changes, such as the accumulation of glacial sediments, the development of soil-forming and progressive alterations in water and biogeochemical cycles. While developing hydrological and hydrogeological models for the Werenskioldbreen proglacial expanding zone, we encountereda significant problem due to insufficient data for parameterizing glacial sediments, constituting the environment for water flow and storage. These data provide detail insight into the physicochemical parameters of glacial sediments and classify them in terms of grain size distribution, hydraulic conductivity, pH, and C org , N t and P t contents. Samples for macroscopic examination and further laboratory analysis were collected from each different proglacial sediment in the profile.Macroscopic characterisation in the field was carried out in accordance with standards PN-EN ISO 14688-1 and PN-EN ISO 14688-2 introduced into the catalogue of Polish Standards in 2006 and are cited in PN-EN 1997-2:2009, known as Eurocode 7: Geotechnical engineering design - Part 2: Identification and investigation of soils. More information on the data acquisition methodology is included in the publication (same title) or can be obtained through the contact provided. Keywords: glacial sediments, granulometric composition, phisicochemical properties, Werenskioldbreen forefield