Day 3 ended up being very similar as day 2 – lots of walking around finding suitable locations to deploy seismometers!
It’s critical that we get these out as early as possible. These instruments will be able to measure ‘event’s as the bed of the glacier. When I say event, I mean signals that result from some form of glacier movement or the the transport of meltwater. This is really key because we think the Borebreen surge is being caused by the increase in the amount of water at the bed of the glacier. The more water, the more the ice can slide. But when that water get’s flushed out the surge stops – predicting when this will happen is anyone’s guess at this stage!
The weather has been glorious – bright sunshine and relatively warm (around 5 degrees). Storms are due at the end of the day so we’ll have no fieldwork tomorrow. Winds were starting to pick up on our boat ride back with some large waves. Luckily our boat skipper from the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) was well equipped to deal with the waves! Whilst we have some time off, I’ll post some initial thoughts on our fieldwork and why studying surging glaciers is so important (and interesting!).
Research Page: William D. Harcourt 