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Rock glaciers on South Shetland Islands, Antarctic Peninsula, Version 1

Metadata Updated: December 7, 2023

In the South Shetland Islands the investigators found eight active rock glaciers, no relict or fossil examples, and seven protalus ramparts. The rock glaciers are located on peninsulas and capes of the two main islands of the archipelago: King George and Livingston. The South Shetland Islands have a cold oceanic climate, characteristic of the maritime Antarctica, with frequent summer rains and moderate thermal amplitude, and a cold and humid morphoclimatic system, of crionival character. These climatic parameters facilitate the operation of periglacial processes, and the presence of a usually saturated active layer in summer. In the South Shetland Islands the presence of rock glaciers have been identified on Livingston Island (Martinez de Pison et al., 1991; Lopez-Martinez et al., 1992a, 1992b), on Admiralty Bay, in King George Island (Birkenmajer, 1981; Barsch et al., 1985) and in Fildes Peninsula (Barsch et al. 1985; Barsch, 1996; Cheng et al., 1996). Four further active rock glaciers have been identified during the present study in King George and Livingston Island (Serrano and Lopez-Martinez, in prep.). The rock glaciers are located in marginal zones, between 300 m asl and sea level, which has been recently deglaciated, and principally under 70 m asl, near 100 m under the Median Equilibrium Line Altitude (MELA). There are indications of a recent diminution of activity, with blurred fronts, mass movements in fronts and sides, lichen colonization and glaciokarstic processes. All of these indicate an inherited dynamic of past conditions in lower altitudes.

References to rock glaciers are scarce in Antarctica, limited to a few examples in the Transantarctic Mountains, Victoria Land, South Georgia, James Ross Island, and South Shetland Islands. The spatial pattern of rock glaciers indicates that they are more represented in the periphery of Antarctica than in the interior of the continent, and are particularly numerous in the Antarctic Peninsula region. These data are presented on the CAPS Version 1.0 CD-ROM, June 1998.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date December 7, 2023

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date November 12, 2020
Metadata Updated Date December 7, 2023
Publisher NSIDC
Maintainer
Identifier C1386206637-NSIDCV0
Data First Published 1994-01-01
Language en-US
Data Last Modified 1997-12-31
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://data.nasa.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Citation Rock glaciers on South Shetland Islands, Antarctic Peninsula, Version 1. Version 1. Archived by National Aeronautics and Space Administration, U.S. Government, National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Harvest Object Id eb2ddb09-e1b6-40fd-8119-8bcec5529bbf
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://cmr.earthdata.nasa.gov:443/search/concepts/C1386206637-NSIDCV0.html
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -62.75 -63.667 -57.667 -61.983
Program Code 026:001
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 28305206c9e494228eac30ab68ee49166a606a6a17ff61ccafe1f57ea055419d
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 1994-01-01T00:00:00Z/1997-12-31T23:59:59.999Z

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