TY - CHAP
T1 - Rock Glaciers in the Austrian Alps
T2 - A General Overview with a Special Focus on Dösen Rock Glacier, Hohe Tauern Range
AU - Kellerer-Pirklbauer, Andreas
AU - Lieb, Gerhard Karl
AU - Kaufmann, Viktor
N1 - Funding Information:
The Dösen Rock Glacier is situated in the Hohe Tauern National Park. The task of this national park is, besides nature protection, to promote research and communicate its results to the public. Accordingly, the investigations carried out by the scientific institutions the authors belong to were supported by the national park authorities already from the beginning in the 1990s. As a consequence, the idea came up to present the topic of permafrost and rock glaciers and their interaction with changing climatic conditions to national park visitors. The Institute of Geography and Regional Science of the University of Graz took over this task and developed a concept of a nature trail. This trail was finally established in cooperation with the Austrian Alpine Association and a guide-book was also published (Lieb and Nutz 2009). Thus interested persons can easily learn about this topic and experience high mountain environments by hiking the trail which leads through the entire Dösen Valley up to the rock glacier front. At the high alpine hut Arthur-von-Schmid Haus the hiker will be rewarded with the stunning alpine scenery depicted in Fig. 27.11 and the first glimpses of the Dösen Rock Glacier.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Rock glaciers are prominent landforms in mountain regions and as such indicate permafrost conditions at present or in former times. So-called active rock glaciers consist of debris and ice and creep slowly downslope thereby forming flow structures with ridges and furrows. This geomorphological expression of permafrost creep is commonly preserved after the complete melt-out of the ice component of the now relict rock glacier body. Rock glaciers are widespread in the Austrian Alps, with c. 2900 relict rock glaciers containing no ice at present and c. 1700 intact rock glaciers which contain ice and indicate the widespread permafrost occurrence. A very recent inventory lists even more than 5700 rock glaciers and related landforms. One of the best studied active rock glaciers in Austria is the Dösen Rock Glacier located in the Central Austrian Alps. It has been investigated during several national and international projects since 1993, dealing with permafrost conditions and distribution, surface kinematics, internal structure and age. Significant ground surface warming of the rock glacier body occurred since 2007, accompanied by general acceleration of the rock glacier surface flow velocity. Relative age dating of the landform indicates a long and variable formation history over a period of several thousand years. Selected topics with a geomorphological focus and the relationships between permafrost and environmental conditions are communicated to the public by an educational trail which has been established at this rock glacier and its vicinity.
AB - Rock glaciers are prominent landforms in mountain regions and as such indicate permafrost conditions at present or in former times. So-called active rock glaciers consist of debris and ice and creep slowly downslope thereby forming flow structures with ridges and furrows. This geomorphological expression of permafrost creep is commonly preserved after the complete melt-out of the ice component of the now relict rock glacier body. Rock glaciers are widespread in the Austrian Alps, with c. 2900 relict rock glaciers containing no ice at present and c. 1700 intact rock glaciers which contain ice and indicate the widespread permafrost occurrence. A very recent inventory lists even more than 5700 rock glaciers and related landforms. One of the best studied active rock glaciers in Austria is the Dösen Rock Glacier located in the Central Austrian Alps. It has been investigated during several national and international projects since 1993, dealing with permafrost conditions and distribution, surface kinematics, internal structure and age. Significant ground surface warming of the rock glacier body occurred since 2007, accompanied by general acceleration of the rock glacier surface flow velocity. Relative age dating of the landform indicates a long and variable formation history over a period of several thousand years. Selected topics with a geomorphological focus and the relationships between permafrost and environmental conditions are communicated to the public by an educational trail which has been established at this rock glacier and its vicinity.
KW - Dösen Valley
KW - Ground temperature
KW - Hohe Tauern National Park
KW - Rock glacier evolution
KW - Rock glacier monitoring
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130774649&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-92815-5_27
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-92815-5_27
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85130774649
SN - 978-3-030-92813-1
T3 - World Geomorphological Landscapes
SP - 393
EP - 406
BT - Landscapes and Landforms of Austria
A2 - Embleton-Hamann, Christine
PB - Springer Science and Business Media B.V.
CY - Cham
ER -