The Rhône glacier, source of the eponym river, is located in the Valais canton. Due to its easy access from the road leading to the Furka pass, it is well known and touristic. These last years, because of its retreat, a proglacial lake formed, and the ice cave, usually an important touristic attraction, is suffering. The glacier is also partly recovered with white tarp aiming to limit the ice melt. Since late summer 2021, very large circular crevasses, signs of what we called collapse feature, appeared. The subglacial water channel is thought to have created a large air cavity that will lead to a partial collapse of the area.
In collaboration with the VAW lab form the ETH Zurich, we started to study this collapse feature in the summer 2022. We acquired, using our drone-based GPR system, high-density 4D GPR data over the area with the objective to study the collapse feature’s temporal evolution in time until. Because this study is under work, no results even preliminary will be displayed here, but please find below a few photos from our fieldworks, and stay tuned!
All photos taken by Bastien Ruols.