Jökull - 01.12.1987, Page 51

A glacier icecored rock glacier, Tröllaskagi, Iceland
H. ELIZABETH MARTIN and W. BRIAN WHALLEY
Department of Geography, The Queen’s University of Belfast
Belfast BT7 INN, Northern Ireland
abstract
A rock glacier in Tröllaskagi is described and vel-
ocities recorded over the period 1977—1985. Investiga-
tions show that glacier ice is found continuously
between the small corrie headwall glacier and the
snout of the rock glacier. The rock glacier appears to
have originated as a glacier which was subsequently
covered by debris derived from the corrie backwall.
Rock glacier surface velocities (< 2m in 8 years) sug-
gest that the buried ice core is no longer fed from the
headwall glacier.
INTRODUCTION
Rock glaciers are becoming widely appreciated as
important features of the glacial and periglacial en-
vironment (see for example, Washburn 1979; Johnson
1983; Martin and Whalley, in press). However, in
many cases it is by no means clear how these rock
LOCATION OF FIELD AREA, NORTHERN ICELAND
Figure 1: Location of field area,
Northern Iceland.
1. mynd. Kort af svœðinu, sem um er
rœtt í greininni.
JÖKULL
No. 37,1987