L.įuture space missions like the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) planned to orbit Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa can fully utilize a variable power radio sounder instrument. Successful use of VIRL-6 radar in Caucasus opens up the possibility of using such equipment on different types of glaciers in polar and mountain regions, including temperate, polythermal and surging glaciers. Ice-thickness values exceeded 420 m for some of the Central Caucasus glaciers. Results showed good agreement between ground and aerial measurements. In total more than 120 km of radar profiles were obtained. Independent data were obtained also for two glaciers using ground version of the same VIRL-6 radar. Equipment has been used on 16 glaciers including biggest glacier in Caucasus - Bezengi (36 km2) most of which have a highly crevassed surfaces and heterogeneous internal structure. VIRL-6 radar is light weight and can be quickly transformed into ground version. The radar has a relatively long (10 m) receiving and transmitting antennas, which together with receiving, recording and transmitting devices can be mounted on a special girder, being suspended from a helicopter. Special aerial version of this ground penetrating radar was designed for helicopter-born measurements. In 2010-2012 a number of ground base and airborne radio-echo sounding surveys have been accomplished in Caucasus Mountains using 20 MHz monopulse radar VIRL-6. So far data for several seismic and GPR profiles have been reported for only 3 glaciers from more than 1.7 thousands located in Caucasus. One of the glacierized mountain regions with a lack of direct ice-thickness measurements is Caucasus. However, direct measurements of ice thickness are very sparse due to its high cost and laboriousness. Recent glacier reduction is affecting local river discharge and contributes to the global sea level rise. Lavrentiev, Ivan Kutuzov, Stanislav Vasilenko, Evgeny Macheret, YuriĪccurate glacier volume and ice-thickness estimations are highly important for many glaciological applications.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |