Initial AUV Investigation of the Dynamic Morainal Bank Environment of the Advancing Hubbard Glacier, Alaska

Abstract:

Hubbard Glacier has been steadily advancing into tidewater > 200 years; advance over last 40 years has averaged ~34 m/yr, although at spatially variable rates across the terminus (14-80 m/yr) and with a seasonal advance and retreat cycle of ~100 m to 300 m, but as much as 600 m. The advance of the terminus is synchronous with the movement of the morainal bank that underlies it. The mechanics of this motion and the related sedimentological processes responsible for this coordinated advance of the grounding line are based largely on inferences from geophysical surveys of remnant morainal banks. In situ and repeated observations of the submarine margin are required to improve our understanding of how the terminus advances into deep fjords. We conducted initial submarine observations using a Bluefin 9M AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) and acquired high-resolution swath bathymetry and sidescan backscatter along a ~2 km long section of the ice face of the glacier. Onboard oceanographic measurements and surface CTD casts were obtained during AUV deployment. Decimeter-scale imagery of the seabed reveals numerous erosional and depositional bedforms and gravitational features next to the ice face and down the morainal bank’s proximal slope. The moraine surface adjacent to the ice face is coarse, apparently swept clear of finer materials, exhibits gravel stripes and boulder lags. The slope into the fjord displays a sequence of bedforms from barchan-shaped dunes up to 15 m on a side to barchanoid transverse ridges >50 m long to transverse ridges >100 m long. This transition implies increased sand supply to the bed downslope. Channels, erosional gullies and scours cross the upper slope, while localized slump and flow failures occur sporadically across the face. We speculate that high concentration bottom flows originating from turbulent subglacial discharge are likely processes creating the barchan forms and that the flow velocity reduces with distance from the grounding line. Which bedforms were active or remnant features could not be told by our limited duration survey and in this location/time, the deposits appear indicative of a line source rather than distinct subglacial point sources. Changes in water depth at the current terminus indicate shoaling rates of ~10 m/yr near the ice face to ~1m/yr at the edge of the basin.