[Folda] Fwd: Folda Thursday seminar series

[Halldóra Bergþórsdóttir]

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From: Halldóra Bergþórsdóttir <halldorabjork87 at gmail.com>
Date: 2012/10/29
Subject: Folda Thursday seminar series
To: folda at listar.hi.is, jhi at hi.is


Dear Folda members,

Ágúst Gunnlaugsson is going to present to us his Bachelor's project, next
Thursday (1st of November)

The aim of this research is to map the changes of the glacier rivers on
Skeiðarársandur, Iceland over the period from 1991 to 2009. Skeiðarársandur
is the biggest active sandur on earth (Gomez et al. 2000). Great changes
occured during the period of research. Following a volcanic eruption in
northwestern Vatnajökull in autumn of 1996, a great jökulhlaup came down on
Skeiðarársandur (Smith et.al 2006). Data used came from the SPOT 5
satellite, TerraSAR-X radar satellite and aerial photographs from The
national land survey of Iceland. Satellite photographs were rectified to
digital elevation model and aerial photographs were georeferenced to a map
from the National land survey of Iceland. Cartographic work was done in
ArcMap from Esri. Glacial rivers and lagoons were drawn up as polygons and
shown on maps. The glacier margin of Skeiðarárjökull was also mapped to find
out the retreat of the glacier margin during the period of research.

The Gígjukvísl river showed significant change following the 1996 jökulhlaup
and lagoons started to form by the glacier margin during the period. The
largest lagoons formed in the Gígjukvísl area. Skeiðará river changed its
course quite a lot over the research period and in July 2009 all the water
that was flowing into the channel of Skeiðará started flowing into
Gígjukvísl river. Great changes occured in the channel of Gígjukvísl river
following that event. The retreat of the glacier margin was great during the
period. The western part shrinked about 5 km2, the middle part about 9,5 km2
and the eastern part 2 km2.

Best regards,
Board of Folda
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