Abstract
Ice-free areas cover a small percentage of the land in the South Shetland Islands. However, they are significant as they contain ecosystems highly sensitive to environmental changes and are located within a region affected by global warming. These areas are dominated by periglacial, glacial, fluvial, and coastal processes and landforms, where permafrost is often present. Soil development is observed although vegetation cover is sparse and closely related to the geomorphology. The mapping and monitoring of ice-free areas is important as they are highly sensitive to climate change. The objective of this study was to characterize and map surface landforms in ice-free areas using traditional mapping methods as well as advanced remote sensing techniques. Geomorphological and topographical maps were initially obtained through field measurements and observations, and complemented with existing aerial photography at scales between 1:2000 and 1:25000. Thereafter, satellite-borne data became available and were included in the methodology to further determine the distribution of the landforms. In the Antarctic environment, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) provides the most reliable images as data can be obtained in any weather conditions as well as during the day and night. Fully polarimetric SAR RADARSAT-2 were used to determine seven different terrain classes representing surface landforms in ice-free areas around Maxwell Bay (King George Island). The SAR remote sensing techniques were successfully applied to identify different periglacial, fluvial, glacial, coastal, as well as lithological landforms. Field data from Fildes Peninsula were used to train a supervised classifier to map further areas around Maxwell Bay. In this case, the ice-free areas around Maxwell Bay clearly show the dominance of periglacial landforms and processes. Therefore, these techniques can be used to compare past and future results and to monitor areas affected by changing environmental factors and increasing human activities.
Highlights
In the South Shetland Islands, within the northern Antarctic Peninsula region (Fig. 1), approximately 90% of the 4,700 km2 of the terrestrial surface is covered by ice
Remote sensing data, which is not affected by cloud cover, such as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data were acquired from the RADARSAT-2 sensor
Like False Bay coast (Livingston Island) and Coppermine Peninsula (Robert Island), we have identified two Holocene glacial pulses by means of moraines and Holocene raised beaches relationships
Summary
In the South Shetland Islands, within the northern Antarctic Peninsula region (Fig. 1), approximately 90% of the 4,700 km of the terrestrial surface is covered by ice. The icefree surfaces show a variety of landforms, mainly of glacial, periglacial, coastal and fluvial origin. Periglacial processes and landforms together with the presence of permafrost are among the most relevant geomorphological elements in the ice-free areas of the South Shetland Islands (López-Martínez et al, 2012). Freezing and thawing cycles within the soil favour the colonization process by vegetative propagation and create favourable conditions for the activity of the associated soil microorganisms. These conditions occur during the Austral summers, when snow cover is at a minimum (Tin et al., 2014). Soil is highly vulnerable in the Antarctic environment because of the low temperatures, general absence of vegetation and soil biota (Campbell and Claridge, 1987)
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