Fast-flowing outlet glaciers of the Last Glacial Maximum Patagonian Icefield

Glacial geomorphology around the Northern Patagonian Icefield indicates that a number of fast-flowing outlet glaciers (the continuation of ice streams further upglacier) drained the icefield during the Last Glacial Maximum. These topographically controlled fast-flowing glaciers may have dictated the overall pattern of Last Glacial Maximum ice discharge, lowered the ice-surface profile, and forced the ice-divide westward. The influence of the fast-flowing outlet glaciers on icefield behavior also helps to explain why the configuration of the Patagonian Icefield at the Last Glacial Maximum is not accurately represented in existing numerical ice-sheet models. Fast-flowing outlet glaciers would have strongly influenced ice discharge patterns and therefore partially decoupled the icefield from climatically induced changes in thickness and extent.     

Variations in sediment yield over the advance and retreat of a calving glacier, Laguna San Rafael, North Patagonian Icefield

Bathymetric and sub-bottom acoustic data were collected in Laguna San Rafael, Chile, to determine sediment yields during the Little Ice Age advance and subsequent retreat of San Rafael Glacier. The sediment volumes and subaqueous landforms imaged are used to interpret the proglacial dynamics and estimate erosion rates from a temperate tidewater glacier over a complete advance-retreat cycle. Sediment yields from San Rafael Glacier averaged 2.7 × 10⁷ m³/a since the end of the Little Ice Age, circa AD 1898, corresponding to average basin-wide erosion rates of 23 ± 9 mm/a; the highest erosion rates, 68 ± 23 mm/a, occurred at the start of the retreat phase, and have since been steadily decreasing. Erosion rates were much lower during glacial advance, averaging at most 7 mm/a, than during retreat. Such large glacial sediment yields over two centuries of advance and retreat suggest that the contribution of sediments stored subglacially cannot account for much of the sediment being delivered to the terminus today. The detailed sub-bottom information of a proglacial lagoon yields important clues as to the timing of erosion, deposition and transfer of glacigenic sediments from orogens to the continental shelves, and the influence of glacier dynamics on this process.