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Investigating migrating boulders on glacier surfaces
Boulders lying on top of glacier surfaces might seem to travel only passively with the ice flow. In fact, they also move because of the peculiar melt patterns produced by their own shadows. This thesis will use repeated aerial imagery to quantify this movement for various glaciers in the Swiss Alps.
Large stones lying on the surface of glaciers (i.e. boulders) might be perceived as only passively moving, following the ice flow of the underlying glacier ice. In fact, there is a secondary component to this motion, caused by the spatially-different melt patterns induced by the boulders’ own shadows. Albeit small, this component of motion has been measured in the field (e.g. Alean et al., 2020; https://doi.org/10.1080/04353676.2020.1850064 ), and has been suggested to possibly affect estimates of surface ice flow velocities derived from feature tracking.
Large stones lying on the surface of glaciers (i.e. boulders) might be perceived as only passively moving, following the ice flow of the underlying glacier ice. In fact, there is a secondary component to this motion, caused by the spatially-different melt patterns induced by the boulders’ own shadows. Albeit small, this component of motion has been measured in the field (e.g. Alean et al., 2020; https://doi.org/10.1080/04353676.2020.1850064 ), and has been suggested to possibly affect estimates of surface ice flow velocities derived from feature tracking.
The goal of this thesis is to better quantify this peculiar component of the boulders’ motion. This will be done by relying on an archive of high-resolution aerial images available for the Swiss Alps. The thesis will start with a selection of individual glaciers, and move towards an extensive application of the developed methodologies. The work will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Jürg Alean, who has assembled a number of field based observations on the topic through the years.
The goal of this thesis is to better quantify this peculiar component of the boulders’ motion. This will be done by relying on an archive of high-resolution aerial images available for the Swiss Alps. The thesis will start with a selection of individual glaciers, and move towards an extensive application of the developed methodologies. The work will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. Jürg Alean, who has assembled a number of field based observations on the topic through the years.
For further information please contact Dr. Jürg Alean (juerg.alean@gmail.com) or Prof. Daniel Farinotti (daniel.farinotti@ethz.ch).
For further information please contact Dr. Jürg Alean (juerg.alean@gmail.com) or Prof. Daniel Farinotti (daniel.farinotti@ethz.ch).