The 2017 catastrophic subsidence in the Dålk Glacier: Unmanned aerial survey and digital terrain analysis

, , ,
1 Institute of Mathematical Problems of Biology, Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushchino, Russia
2 Department of Cartography and Geoinformatics, St. Petersburg University, St. Petersburg, Russia
3 Antarctic Division, Polar Marine Geosurvey Expedition, St. Petersburg, Russia
4 Department of Ice Regime and Forecasts, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.27064v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Spatial and Geographic Information Science
Keywords
unmanned aerial system, digital elevation model, glaciology, natural hazard, Antarctica
Copyright
© 2018 Florinsky et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Florinsky IV, Bliakharskii D, Popov S, Pryakhin S. 2018. The 2017 catastrophic subsidence in the Dålk Glacier: Unmanned aerial survey and digital terrain analysis. PeerJ Preprints 6:e27064v1

Abstract

We present the first results from a study of the 2017 catastrophic subsidence in the Dålk Glacier, East Antarctica using an unmanned aerial system (UAS) and UAS-derived DEMs. The subsided portion of the Dålk Glacier and adjacent territory was surveyed in two flights, before and after the collapse. The survey was performed by Geoscan 201, a small flying-wing UAS. Aerial images have an average resolution of 6 cm. Using Agisoft PhotoScan software, we generated two DEMs with a resolution of 22 cm related to the pre- and post-collapsed glacier surface. To model the pre-collapsed subglacial cavern, one DEM was subtracted from the other. Finally, we discuss a probable mechanism of the catastrophic subsidence.

Author Comment

This paper was presented at the Geomorphometry 2018 conference in Boulder, CO in August 2018.