Malaspina fall trip

 In the last few years I've had much less field work and that made me even lazier about keeping this blog up to date. So here are some good intentions to catch up again. These are a few pictures from returning to Malaspina Glacier to pick up GPS stations and measure mass balance poles.

This is from an Alaska Airlines jet. It's a view of where the Malaspina surge advanced into a lake at Fountain Stream

A little farther east we got a nice view of where Sitkagi Lagoon has formed with a series of other lakes that cut through the vegetation and dirt-covered ice.

Revisiting a GPS station. When we left it in July, the antenna was level with the surface, about 4 m of melt.

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Ice is also melting where it is covered by debris. Victor is measuring a stake that was level with the surface when we drilled it in July.

A view of the folded moraines.

Hans Munich finds a good parking spot for his helicopter.

View from our weather station,

Malaspina Glacier: July 2020 campaign

 We returned to the Malaspina Glacier a few weeks ago for a somewhat longer field campaign as part of a new NSF funded study that looks at the melt and possible future evolution of the glacier. From airborne radar measurements we know that much of the lobe of the Malaspina Glacier is based below sea level, in some places by more than 300 m, which makes it susceptible to accelerated retreat.

Malaspina is one of the last big temperate piedmont glaciers in the world. It is fed by the Seward Glacier, which is located in the big coastal mountains, nestled between Mt. Logan (5959 m asl) and Mt. St.Elias (5489 m asl). Seward Glacier then spills out on the coastal plane where it spreads out and merges with the neighboring Agassiz Glacier.

Camp put-in with Single Otter from Yakutat.

Our camp on the beach.

An automatic weather station where the Seward Glacier enters the Malaspina

View from the Seward onto the Malaspina lobe.

GPS on the heavily crevassed ice

The front of the glacier is a wet mess with lots of buried ice and unstable ground with brush and whole forests

A nice view of Denali through a large crack in one of the many moraines

A view from above onto 'Backdoor Lake', which is one of the main avenues of current glacier retreat

Glacier front with buried ice covered in dense vegetation

Drilling a mass balance stake

A combined GPS / met station set up

Our camp site with the helicopter

An old water channel in buried ice that has lots of vegetation on top

Camp fire!

A beautiful camera location at the exit of the Seward Glacier

View across the Seward towards St.Elias