Jökull - 01.01.2019, Page 12

Terminus lakes on the south side of Vatnajökull
Figure 7. The ice margin of Morsárjökull, Skaftafellsjökull, Svínafellsjökull and Virkisjökull/Falljökull at dif-
ferent times (dashed coloured curves) and glacial lakes in the foreland (coloured areas). For explanations and
credits see the caption of Figure 3. The glacier bed is from Björnsson (2009a) and Magnússon and others
(2012). – Jaðar Morsárjökuls, Skaftafellsjökuls, Svínafellsjökuls og Virkisjökuls/Falljökuls á mismunandi tím-
um (slitnir, litaðir ferlar) og þróun lóna við jökuljaðarinn (lituð svæði). Sjá nánari skýringar við 3. mynd.
Jökulbotninn er frá Helga Björnssyni (2009a) og Eyjólfi Magnússyni o.fl. (2012).
glacier identified by radio-echo sounding (Björnsson,
2009a; Magnússon and others, 2012) and will there-
fore most likely continue to grow rapidly. The lake
area had reached 1.3 km2 in 2018 from ∼0.03 km2
in 2002, corresponding to an average growth rate of
∼0.07 km2 a−1. It extends more than 2.4 km across
the entire terminus.
The radio-echo sounding measurements show that
the lake was ∼29×106 m3 in 2018 and ∼50 m deep
at its deepest point. If the glacier eventually retreats
out of the ∼6 km long subglacial trough shown by the
radio-echo sounding measurements (Magnússon and
others, 2012), a > 200 m deep lake with an area of
∼11 km2 will be formed in the depression.
Svínafellsjökull
The tongues of Skaftafellsjökull and Svínafellsjökull
merged in the lowland until 1940, when the retreat of
the termini separated them (Björnsson, 2009a; Laufey
Lárusdóttir, pers. comm. August 2018). Somewhat
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