The First Rock Glacier Inventory for the Greater Caucasus

Tielidze, L.G.; Cicoira, A.; Nosenko, G.A.; Eaves, S.R.

Авторы: Tielidze L.G., Cicoira A., Nosenko G.A., Eaves S.R.
Журнал: Geosciences (Switzerland)
Том: 13
Год издания: 2023
Издательство: MDPI Publishing
Местоположение издательства: Basel, Switzerland, Switzerland
Первая страница: 117
Последняя страница: 136
DOI: 10.3390/geosciences13040117
Аннотация: Rock glaciers are an integral part of the periglacial environment. At the regional scale inthe Greater Caucasus, there have been no comprehensive systematic efforts to assess the distributionof rock glaciers, although some individual parts of ranges have been mapped before. In this studywe produce the first inventory of rock glaciers from the entire Greater Caucasus region—Russia,Georgia, and Azerbaijan. A remote sensing survey was conducted using Geo-Information System(GIS) and Google Earth Pro software based on high-resolution satellite imagery—SPOT,Worldview,QuickBird, and IKONOS, based on data obtained during the period 2004–2021. Sentinel-2 imageryfrom the year 2020 was also used as a supplementary source. The ASTER GDEM (2011) was used todetermine location, elevation, and slope for all rock glaciers. Using a manual approach to digitizerock glaciers, we discovered that the mountain range contains 1461 rock glaciers with a total areaof 297.8 23.0km2. Visual inspection of the morphology suggests that 1018 rock glaciers with atotal area of 199.6 15.9 km2 (67% of the total rock glacier area) are active, while the remainingrock glaciers appear to be relict. The average maximum altitude of all rock glaciers is found at3152 96 m above sea level (a.s.l.) while the mean and minimum altitude are 3009 91 m and2882 87 m a.s.l., respectively. We find that the average minimum altitude of active rock glaciersis higher (2955 98 m a.s.l.) than in relict rock glaciers (2716 83 m a.s.l.). No clear difference isdiscernible between the surface slope of active (41.4 3) and relict (38.8 4) rock glaciers in the entire mountain region. This inventory provides a database for understanding the extent of permafrostin the Greater Caucasus and is an important basis for further research of geomorphology andpalaeoglaciology in this region. The inventory will be submitted to the Global Land Ice Measurementsfrom Space (GLIMS) database and can be used for future studies.
Добавил в систему: Носенко Геннадий Андреевич

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