A team led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers has revealed, for the first time, that landslides can have a major impact on the movement of glaciers.
A team led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers has revealed, for the first time, that landslides can have a major impact on the movement of glaciers. Using satellite imagery to study the effects of a 2019 landslide that occurred on the Amalia Glacier in the Patagonia region of Chile, the researchers found that the landslide caused the glacier to grow in size and has since slowed down its melting process.
This information could help scientists more accurately predict the size of glaciers in the future and better understand the risks of living in areas with both glaciers and landslides.
The study is published in Geology, a peer-reviewed geoscience journal published by the Geological Society of America.
Glaciologists have been monitoring the recession of glaciers due to global warming around the world for decades. The 150-square-kilometer Amalia Glacier has been receding steadily—or losing ice and becoming smaller—having shrunk by more than 10 kilometers over the past 100 years. Until now, the effect of landslides on this movement was largely unknown.
Read more at: University of Minnesota
Using satellite imagery to study the effects of a 2019 landslide on the Amalia Glacier in Patagonia, a University of Minnesota-led research team found the landslide helped stabilize the glacier and caused it to grow by about 1,000 meters over the last three years. (Photo Credit: Max Van Wyk de Vries, University of Minnesota)
