Livingstone, S.J. orcid.org/0000-0002-7240-5037, Utting, D.J., Ruffell, A. et al. (4 more authors) (2016) Discovery of relict subglacial lakes and their geometry and mechanism of drainage. Nature Communications, 7. ncomms1176. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
Recent proxy measurements reveal that subglacial lakes beneath modern ice sheets periodically store and release large volumes of water, providing an important but poorly understood influence on contemporary ice dynamics and mass balance. This is because direct observations of how lake drainage initiates and proceeds are lacking. Here we present physical evidence of the mechanism and geometry of lake drainage from the discovery of relict subglacial lakes formed during the last glaciation in Canada. These palaeo-subglacial lakes comprised shallow (<10 m) lenses of water perched behind ridges orientated transverse to ice flow. We show that lakes periodically drained through channels incised into bed substrate (canals). Canals sometimes trend into eskers that represent the depositional imprint of the last high-magnitude lake outburst. The subglacial lakes and channels are preserved on top of glacial lineations, indicating long-term re-organization of the subglacial drainage system and coupling to ice flow.
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Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Geography (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL NE/H015256/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 18 May 2016 08:41 |
Last Modified: | 24 Oct 2018 12:11 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11767 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/ncomms11767 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:99125 |
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