Table I: Schedule of the drilling operation and lengths of the recovered core material for the boreholes on Vernagtferner in 1979

In 1979 a core drilling project was carried out on Vernagtferner in the Oetztal Alps (Austria). This report describes the field work of the drilling project, the recovered core material and the occurrence of water in the boreholes and compiles the succeding investigation program.

Table I. Composition of till in north Greenland

From 1950 through 1900 studies on the glacial geology of northern Greenland have been made in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories. As a result of these studies four distinct phases of the latest glaciation have been recognized. The last glaciation extended over most of the land and removed traces of previous anes. Retreat of the ice mass began some time previous to 6000 years ago. This was followed by a rtse in sea level which deposited clay-silt succeeded by karne gravels around stagnant ice lobes in the large valleys. Marine terraces, up to 129 meters above present sea level, developed as readjustment occurred in the land free of ice. About 3700 years ago an advance of glaciers down major fjords took place followed by retreat to approximately the present position of the ice. Till in Peary Land, north of Frederick E. Hyde Fjord, contains only locally derived matertals indicating that the central Greenland ice cap did not cover the area.

Debris flow magnitudes: a global catalog

The episodic occurrence of debris flow events in response to stochastic precipitation and wildfire events makes hazard prediction challenging. Previous work has shown that frequency-magnitude distributions of non-fire-related debris flows follow a power law, but less is known about the distribution of post-fire debris flows. As a first step in parameterizing hazard models, we use frequency-magnitude distributions and cumulative distribution functions to compare volumes of post-fire debris flows to non-fire-related debris flows. Due to the large number of events required to parameterize frequency-magnitude distributions, and the relatively small number of post-fire event magnitudes recorded in the literature, we collected data on 73 recent post-fire events in the field. The resulting catalog of 988 debris flow events is presented as an appendix to this article. We found that the empirical cumulative distribution function of post-fire debris flow volumes is composed of smaller events than that of non-fire-related debris flows. In addition, the slope of the frequency-magnitude distribution of post-fire debris flows is steeper than that of non-fire-related debris flows, evidence that differences in the post-fire environment tend to produce a higher proportion of small events. We propose two possible explanations: 1) post-fire events occur on shorter return intervals than debris flows in similar basins that do not experience fire, causing their distribution to shift toward smaller events due to limitations in sediment supply, or 2) fire causes changes in resisting and driving forces on a package of sediment, such that a smaller perturbation of the system is required in order for a debris flow to occur, resulting in smaller event volumes.