Malaspina Glacier: Take 1

 Malaspina Glacier is an amazing place. It is one of the last piedmont (meaning 'foot of the mountain') glaciers in Alaska. That puts a large amount of ice at really low elevation where it is prone to melt rapidly. Previous measurements have shown that much of the lower glacier's bottom is well below sea level, meaning that a retreat would lead to the formation of a large lake or series of lakes, or potentially an ocean bay. In a new proposal funded by the National Science Foundation we are going to explore a number of possible retreat scenarios for the glacier. In the first week of June we did our first trip to establish field instrumentation.

All operations for Malaspina start in Yakutat, a cool coastal town of Alaska with some amazing temperate rain forest.

An interesting part of Yakutat is Cannon Beach, which was fortified against a possible Japanese invasion

The majestic Mt. St.Elias as seen from Yakutat. The sliver of white in front is the mighty Malaspina.

A combined station to measure motion (GPS), melt (via a draw wire) and some basic weather.

And here is St.Elias again, this time from the glacier

Victor is drilling a mass balance stake.

Parts of Malaspina are currently surging, moving at several meters a day. This adds a bit of a challenge!

We put up a weather station near the coast. We'll see what the bears think about that...

And here is the advancing lobe of the surging glacier

Some close-ups of the surge front

And finally, a few shots from the way back from Yakutat from an Alaska Airlines jet in beautiful weather.

This shows the possible ways that Malaspina Glacier could be connected to ocean water.