What Makes Glaciers Shake?

摘要

A new study has uncovered the cause of most "icequakes," seismic tremblings of the earth that can be felt up to 200 kilometers away. Glaciologist Chris Larsen of the Geophysical Institute in Fairbanks, Alaska, and colleague Shad O'Neel of the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage used 21 seismometer stations on the southeastern coast of Alaska to observe icequakes in the St. Elias mountains for a year and a half. As they will report in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research, 85% of the quakes originated at the ends of glaciers.