The Findelen glacier is located in the Valais canton in the south of Switzerland. It is accessible from the famous village of Zermatt, where a series of trains and cable cars can be taken to reach a point located only a few kilometers from the glacier snout. The nearby Fluhalp mountain hotel can be used as a base if the data acquisition spans over several days.
The aim of our work on the Findelen glacier is to investigate whether repeat, drone-based 3D GPR surveys, otherwise known as 4D measurements, can be used to quantify internal ice deformation. The basic idea is that scatterers within the glacier, corresponding to englacial water inclusions and voids, should produce a rather consistent pattern in the GPR image, which may be tracked in time using correlation-based techniques. The corresponding results could provide key information on internal deformation and basal sliding, which are notoriously difficult to measure and must generally be inferred from surface movements based on a number of simplifying assumptions. This work is ongoing, so stay tuned for more results!
