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Geodetic Activities During the 1994 JIRP Field Season Compiled by Scott Mcgee

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Geodetic Activities During the 1994 JIRP Field Season Compiled by Scott Mcgee GEODETIC ACTIVITIES DURING THE 1994 JUNEAU ICEFIELD RESEARCH PROGRAM FIELD SEASON EDITED AND COMPILED BY Scott R. McGee WITH NSF YSP AND REU STUDENT CONTRIBUTIONS BY Polly Bass Matthew Eyklebosch Collin Medeiros Jason Mellerstig Steve Price Gary Renault Kate Tomford AND JIRP STAFF CONTRIBUTIONS BY Prof. Dr.-Ing. Walter Welsch Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dieter Bieneke Dipl.-Ing. Martin Lang Universität der Bundeswehr, München Dr. Peter Angus-Leppan University of New South Wales, Australia Scott R. McGee Foundation for Glacier and Environmental Research Foundation for Glacier and Environmental Research Juneau Icefield Research Program Seattle, Washington and Glaciological and Arctic Sciences Institute University of Idaho Moscow, Idaho JIRP OPEN FILE SURVEY REPORT—1994 Geodetic Activities During the 1994 JIRP Field Season Compiled by Scott McGee Foundation for Glacier and Environmental Research Juneau Icefield Research Program 514 East 1st Street Moscow, Idaho 83843 USA © Copyright 1994 All data contained herein was collected from 1992 to 1994 by the Foundation for Glacier and Environmental Research, Juneau Icefield Research Program with additional financial support from the University of Idaho, National Science Foundation, NASA, the Army Research Office, and the Universität der Bundeswehr, Munich, Germany. These data are available to the public at no charge for scholarly use. Researchers wishing to use the information contained herein may do so provided the author and the Foundation for Glacier and Environmental Research, Juneau Icefield Research Program are properly credited and cited as the originators of the data. Survey reports from previous field seasons of the Juneau Icefield Research Program may be obtained from the Foundation for Glacier and Environmental Research at the above address, or on the Internet at http://www.crevassezone.org. 2 CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................1 2. SURVEY METHODS.................................................................................................................................3 2.1 ESTABLISHMENT OF PROFILES...............................................................................................................4 2.2 GPS SURVEY METHODS........................................................................................................................4 2.3 TERRESTRIAL SURVEY METHODS .........................................................................................................6 3. RESULTS OF SURVEYS ..........................................................................................................................7 3.1 MOVEMENT PROFILES ...........................................................................................................................7 Profile 1............................................................................................................................................7 Profile 2............................................................................................................................................9 Profile 3............................................................................................................................................9 Profile 4..........................................................................................................................................10 Profile 5..........................................................................................................................................11 Profile 6..........................................................................................................................................11 Profile 7a........................................................................................................................................12 Profile 7..........................................................................................................................................13 Profile 8..........................................................................................................................................13 Upper Vaughan Lewis Profile ........................................................................................................14 3.2 TAKU PROFILE 4 MASS BALANCE SURVEY .........................................................................................14 3.3 TAKU PROFILE 4 STRAIN RATE ANALYSIS ..........................................................................................18 3.4 TAKU GLACIER TERMINUS SURVEY .....................................................................................................19 3.5 GILKEY TRENCH SURVEYS ..................................................................................................................19 4. PROSPECTS/RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE SURVEYS ...................................................20 REFERENCES CITED ...................................................................................................................................22 APPENDICES ................................................................................................................................................A-1 APPENDIX 1................................................................................................................................................A-2 APPENDIX 2................................................................................................................................................A-3 APPENDIX 3................................................................................................................................................A-4 APPENDIX 4................................................................................................................................................A-5 APPENDIX 5................................................................................................................................................A-7 APPENDIX 6..............................................................................................................................................A-19 APPENDIX 7..............................................................................................................................................A-25 APPENDIX 8..............................................................................................................................................A-29 APPENDIX 9..............................................................................................................................................A-30 APPENDIX 10............................................................................................................................................A-32 APPENDIX 11............................................................................................................................................A-34 APPENDIX 12............................................................................................................................................A-44 APPENDIX 13............................................................................................................................................A-48 3 Geodetic Activities during the 1994 JIRP Field Season Edited and Compiled by Scott McGee Juneau Icefield Research Program Foundation for Glacier and Environmental Research Seattle, Washington, USA _________________________________________________________________________ 1. Introduction The Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) was organized in 1946 to conduct long- term, interdisciplinary research vital to understanding the total environment of arctic and mountain regions. This approach requires the coordinated involvement of various disciplines such as botany, geology, meteorology, geophysics, and surveying to describe and understand the various natural processes operating in arctic and mountain regions, and the Juneau Icefield in particular. Perhaps the most important function of JIRP is that of quantifying, over time, the physical changes of the Icefield and its environment—advance or retreat of its glaciers, net accumulation or loss of ice, and long-term atmospheric changes. Monitoring these changes is important because the resultant data are valuable in understanding global atmospheric circulation patterns. Long-term monitoring of glacial systems is perhaps the best method available, for glaciers are extremely sensitive to both short-term and long-term atmospheric changes. One way we can detect these changes is to employ surveying to determine glacial flow rates, directions, elevations, and strain-rates. This information, coupled with that gathered by researchers in other disciplines, provides an increased understanding of the complex processes responsible for local and global atmospheric patterns. The 1994 Juneau Icefield Research Program field season was the forty-eight consecutive year that glacier movement surveys have been conducted on the Juneau Icefield. It also was the most productive in terms of the number of surveys completed and the geographic extent over which those surveys were done. This year marked the first time that comprehensive surface movement surveys of the Taku Glacier were carried out from its terminus all the way to its source in the crestal névés of the Alaska/Canada boundary sector—a distance of some 50 km. Additional surveys were conducted in the Gilkey
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