Surge of Bering Glacier and Bagley Ice Field, Alaska: an update to August 1995 and an interpretation of brittle-deformation patterns

Abstract

AbstractIn the summers of 1993, 1994 and 1995, video and Global Positioning System location data and 35 mm photographs were collected in a series of systematic survey flights undertaken over the Bering Glacier and Bagley Ice Field system (Alaska) in an effort to characterize surge-crevasse patterns and surge propagation. During survey flights in late August 1995, we observed that the 1993–94. Bering Glacier surge was continuing and still expanding affecting new areas farther up in Bagley Ice Field. New crevasse fields, similar in pattern to the first surge crevasses we had observed in June 1993 below Khitrov Hills and in other isolated areas of central Bering Glacier and in July 1994 near the head of Bering Glacier (near the junction of Bering Glacier and Bagley Ice Field, in both upper Bering Glacier and Bagley Ice Field), were opening in eastern Bagley Ice Field and in the “Stellet” side of Bagley Ice Field. The type of crevasses seen in the new fields suggested that the surge was propagating into these areas. By analysis and interpretation of the brittle-deformation patterns apparent in the crevasse patterns, some aspects of the past kinematic framework of the surge can be deduced. This approach may lead to a more general classification of ice-surface structures and to their linkage to ongoing processes.