Cryoseismology

Abstract

The last decade witnessed an explosion in yearly number of publications on passive glacier seismology. The seismic signals from a wide range of glacier‐related processes fill a broad band of frequencies (from 10−3 to 102 Hz) and moment magnitudes (from M–3 to M7) providing a fresh and unprecedented view on fundamental processes in the cryosphere. New insights into basal motion, iceberg calving, glacier, iceberg, and sea ice dynamics, and precursory signs of unstable glaciers and ice structural changes are being discovered with seismological techniques. These observations offer an invaluable foundation for understanding ongoing environmental changes and for future monitoring of ice bodies worldwide. In this review we discuss seismic sources in the cryosphere as well as research challenges for the near future. The field of glacier seismology is evolving so rapidly that some parts of this review will likely soon be outdated. Nevertheless, given an overwhelming number of recent publications and rapidly growing seismic data volumes provided by modern seismic installations in polar and mountain regions, this introduction to cryosphere seismicity aims to serve as a timely and comprehensive reference for glaciologists and seismologists.

Sensitivity of grounding line dynamics to the choice of the friction law

“…Several authors have developed physically based subglacial hydrological models accounting for some of these features (Schoof, 2010;Hewitt and others, 2012;Werder and others, 2013;Fleurian and others, 2014), but constraining them against observations is an arduous task as glacier beds are usually out of reach and traditionally used instruments, such as borehole pressure sensors (Schoof and others, 2014), provide limited spatial and temporal coverage. Although still at its premise, cryoseismology appears as a promising method to tackle this shortcoming in the near future (Gimbert and others, 2016;Podolskiy and Walter, 2016). At the same time, assuming that basal friction is governed by the Schoof law, observations of surface slopes at the GL and of GL retreat rates over a sufficiently large time window could give some insight on the distribution of basal water pressure.…”

Antarctic ice sheet thickness estimation using the horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio method with single-station seismic ambient noise

“…In the case of the active seismic and RES methods, considerable economic and logistical support is required to collect the data. With the rapid growth of cryo-seismology in the last one to two decades, many passive seismic methods have been applied to cryospheric research (Podolskiy and Walter, 2016;Aster and Winberry, 2017). Given that passive seismic methods can mitigate logistical problem and are relatively cost-efficient (Zhan et al, 2014;Picotti et al, 2017), it is therefore of interest to explore the feasibility of passive seismic methods to contribute additional and/or better constraints to the ice sheet structure.…”

Towards a standard typology of endogenous landslide seismic sources

“…They are associated with repetitive stick-slip events on the fracture plane. Tensile fracture opening/closing generate similar signals on glacier at the surface and at depth (Walter et al, 2013a;Helmstetter et al, 2015b;Podolskiy and Walter, 2016). Focal mechanism and location of the source allow to differentiate between tensile and shear mechanism.…”

“…This variety of signals are observed during glacier motion. Deep icequakes are usually associated to basal motion (Winberry et al, 2011;Pratt et al, 2014;25 Helmstetter et al, 2015a, b;Röösli et al, 2016a;Podolskiy and Walter, 2016). Tremor like signals are also recorded during glacier motion (Lipovsky and Dunham, 2016).…”