The Cryosphere
The Cryosphere
TC

Mapping the age of ice of Gauligletscher combining surface radionuclide contamination and ice flow modeling

2 December 2020

In this paper the authors show that plutonium is an effective tracer to identify ice originating from the early 1960s at the surface of a mountain glacier after a long time within the ice flow, giving unique information on the long-term former ice motion. Combined with ice flow modelling, the dating can be extended to the entire glacier, and the authors show that an airplane which crash-landed on the Gauligletscher in 1946 will likely soon be released from the ice close to the place where pieces have emerged in recent years.

The press release from the ETH Zurich can be found at: https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2020/12/gauli-glacier-earlier-than-expected.html

Mapping the age of ice of Gauligletscher combining surface radionuclide contamination and ice flow modeling
Jouvet, G., Röllin, S., Sahli, H., Corcho, J., Gnägi, L., Compagno, L., Sidler, D., Schwikowski, M., Bauder, A., and Funk, M.
The Cryosphere, 14, 4233–4251, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4233-2020, 2020

Contact: Guillaume Jouvet (guillaume.jouvet@mavt.ethz.ch)