Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Dowdeswell, J.A. Articles by Anderson, J.B. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Submarine glacial landforms and rates of ice-stream collapse

^{1 1} Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1ER, UK
^{2 2} Geological Survey of Norway, Trondheim N-7491, Norway
^{3 3} Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough LE11 3TU, UK
^{4 4} Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
^{5 5} Department of Earth Sciences, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA

The rate of deglacial ice-sheet retreat across polar continental shelves, and possible ice-stream collapse and sea-level rise, has been much debated. High-resolution imagery of seafloor morphology is available for many polar shelves and fjords. The rapidity of ice retreat is inferred from diagnostic assemblages of submarine landforms, produced at ice-stream sedimentary beds. These landforms, exposed by ice retreat across high-latitude shelves, demonstrate that deglaciation occurs in three main ways: rapidly, by flotation and breakup; episodically, by still-stands and/or grounding events punctuating rapid retreat; or by slower retreat of grounded ice. Submarine landform assemblages imply, through the presence of grounding-zone wedges overprinting mega-scale glacial lineations on many polar shelves, that ice-stream retreat is more often episodic than catastrophic. These observations provide a robust test of the ability of numerical models to predict the varied response of ice-sheet basins to environmental changes.

Key Words: ice streams • ice-sheet retreat • swath bathymetry • glacial landforms • glacial lineations • grounding-zone wedges • Arctic • Antarctic

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. Ottesen and J. A. Dowdeswell An inter-ice-stream glaciated margin: Submarine landforms and a geomorphic model based on marine-geophysical data from Svalbard Geological Society of America Bulletin, November 1, 2009; 121(11-12): 1647 - 1665. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]