Survey of the Rusty Glacier Area, Yukon Territory, Canada, 1967–70

Abstract

AbstractA study of the movement of Rusty Glacier was undertaken and continued through four summers because it is believed to be a surging glacier in the last stages of the inactive phase preceding a surge. The entire glacier is very slow moving, essentially motionless in the lower third and most rapid in an area well above the firn line. Unusually steep flow-line emergence angles and higher than average longitudinal compression rates in the lower–middle part of the glacier indicate gradual thickening of the ice above the stagnant lower tongue. There is no clear correlation between local variations in flow rates and surface or bottom topography. The glacier is mostly colder than 0° C to the bottom, and in the one known area of 0° C bottom temperature, flow rates are not greater than elsewhere. Although the glacier is everywhere very thin, maximum flow rates seem clearly related only to variations in ice thickness. The nearby Trapridge Glacier is also a surging glacier and exhibits a strikingly similar flow pattern.