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20 - Glacially Induced Faulting in Alaska

from Part V - Glacially Triggered Faulting Outside Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2021

By
Jeanne Sauber ,
Chris Rollins ,
Jeffrey T. Freymueller  and
Natalia A. Ruppert
Edited by
Holger Steffen ,
Odleiv Olesen  and
Raimo Sutinen
Holger Steffen
Affiliation:
Lantmäteriet, Sweden
Odleiv Olesen
Affiliation:
Geological Survey of Norway
Raimo Sutinen
Affiliation:
Geological Survey of Finland
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Summary

Southern Alaska provides an ideal setting to assess how surface mass changes can influence crustal deformation and seismicity amidst rapid tectonic deformation. Since the end of the Little Ice Age, the glaciers of southern Alaska have undergone extensive wastage, retreating by kilometres and thinning by hundreds of metres. Superimposed on this are seasonal mass fluctuations due to snow accumulation and rainfall of up to metres of equivalent water height in fall and winter, followed by melting of gigatons of snow and ice in spring and summer and changes in permafrost. These processes produce stress changes in the solid Earth that modulate seismicity and promote failure on upper-crustal faults. Here we quantify and review these effects and how they combine with tectonic loading to influence faulting in the southeast, St. Elias and southwest regions of mainland Alaska.

Keywords

AlaskaSubduction ZoneGRACECrustal StressesCryospheric ChangeMountain GlaciersEarthquake HazardTime-Variable GravitySeismicityModelling
Type
Chapter
Information
Glacially-Triggered Faulting , pp. 353 - 365
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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