Intra-seasonal changes in deformation profiles revealed by borehole studies, Storglaciären, Sweden

Abstract

AbstractIn 1985, 1987 and 1988, we measured deformation of boreholes in the ablation zone of Storglaciären. A different hole was used each year. Deformation profiles were determined for four consecutive time periods between mid-July and early September. All three holes were in an area where the glacier lies in an overdeepened part of the bed, up-glacier from a riegel. The first hole was approximately on the glacier center line while the others were midway between the center line and one or the other margin. Despite large standard errors, variations in the deformation profiles during the melt season are broadly consistent with other data. We thus believe that they are real, and that they reflect changes in the stress field resulting from changes in drag at the bed. A decrease in drag early in the melt season, coupled with convergence of the bed contours towards the riegel, is believed to be responsible for a previously documented increase in vertical velocity just up glacier from the riegal at this time of year. Also noteworthy, but perhaps problematical, was an abrupt transverse shear of at a depth of ~25 m near the center of the glacier in July 1985. The shear took place in the zone in which cold ice near the surface gives way to temperate ice deeper in the glacier.