Developments in radar technology have allowed geoscientists to 'see through' a Greenland glacier and construct three-dimensional topographic maps of its bed.
Kenneth Jezek of Ohio State University in Columbus and his team used high-resolution radar tomography and synthetic-aperture radar data to measure ice thickness in a region of the Jakobshavn Glacier. They found that as the glacier slides over its bed, it cuts large-scale ridge–groove features into the bedrock that are similar to landforms found on deglaciated terrain. The orientation and dimensions of the grooves suggest that the glacier has been flowing persistently in the same direction.
Understanding past glacier movement and bedrock geomorphology helps researchers to forecast climate-driven changes in the seaward flux of ice sheets.
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Glaciology: Imaging grooves from glaciers. Nature 468, 1005 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/4681005a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/4681005a
