Vedel Sø/ Dronning Louise Land / North East Greenland

[Espen]

Dronning Louise Land

North East Greenland.


One strange place in North East Greenland is Vedel Sø (Vedel Lake). It is situated in between Pony Gletscher to the west and Ejnar Gletscher to the east, to the south is Carlsbergfondet and to the north Dronningestolen. Even though the Vedel Sø is situated at least 150 km from the open sea when that is ice free, Vedel Lake seems to have it own life, since it is ice free already in mid February, that can be watched by Modis 250m images from February 23 onwards.
The question is what is actually happening here, do we have hot springs related to some special metals / minerals or?

Advise: To find Vedel Lake use this map: http://geuskort.geus.dk/stednavnedb/#zoom=2.7731001719519117&lat=8556736.1125766&lon=538667.32015839&filter=vedel

Find: Dronning Louise Land, then Carlbergfondet, and zoom in a much as you can, after localizing Vedel Sø, swap to Modis (in another browser window)
:

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r02c03.2013098.terra.250m

[ivica]

Espen, you have eagle's eye.

Using GoogleEarth and roughly following coordinates given by geus.dk led me to Eigil Lake.
GoogleEarth image of Vedel Lake area, attached:

[Espen]

Yes Parrots are warned

[ivica]

 

A caldera? (just kidding, or not)

Scheduled (?) research, 2013:
Identification and classification of sub-volcanic systems under Greenland's Ice Sheet
"...Ice penetrating radar data will be examined to study subglacial geomorphology and detect any bed surface features that may indicate the presence of volcanic edifices, caldera structures or a volcanic field..."

[Espen]

Ivica;

Yes you got something there, that may be a reason for this ice free behavior, I also found a few more "hot"spots in the area, how did you find that paper?

[ivica]

Espen,

Googling for "caldera greenland".

Googling "egu2013-3395" gives:
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2013/posters/11724

Can anything be found here:
http://www.egu2013.eu/egu_today.html

[Espen]

Ivica;

What a coincidence? Pretty spooky actually!
I wrote Nicolas for a comment, let see where they are heading? 

[ivica]

Espen,
B408, is that a classroom ?

[Espen]

Ivica;

I think it is a lecture code #?

[Anne]

Apologies if you've already seen this:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071212103004.htm

[Espen]

Anne;

At least I have not, thanx. That could explain the "Hot"Polar Bear Bathtub ( Vedel Sø).

[Anne]

Greenland does indeed have hot springs - though not of volcanic origin.
http://www.greenland.com/en/about-greenland/natur-klima/varme-kilder.aspx

More about them here:
http://my.opera.com/nielsol/blog/2012/02/06/hot-springs-in-greenland

(Sorry for straying off-topic)

[ggelsrinc]

A caldera? (just kidding, or not)

Scheduled (?) research, 2013:
Identification and classification of sub-volcanic systems under Greenland's Ice Sheet
"...Ice penetrating radar data will be examined to study subglacial geomorphology and detect any bed surface features that may indicate the presence of volcanic edifices, caldera structures or a volcanic field..."

By the distance you get far enough away from a subduction zone which is prone to volcanism, you are near enough to warm spots on continental plates to have the possibility of something like a Yellowstone caldera. Around this area where I live, they claim you can get geothermal energy if you drill down deep enough and the geothermal energy comes from radioactive decay. The area is a product of glacial debris and they claim these radioactive substances have deposited themselves in certain layers. The lithosphere around ice sheets tends to be depressed, but even Antarcitca has subsurface lakes, so that heat has to come from somewhere. I recall them saying a volcano down in Antarctica was rich in gold by measuring a vapor sample. I've thought about a volcano under Greenland, because I suspected some reason for drastic changes in temperatures and was looking for a mechanism to disrupt thermohaline circulation, such as a massive fresh water release from Greenland. It would be ironic if the first ice cores from Camp Century that sent scientist all the way to Antarctica to try to figure out how the temperature can change so rapidly has a volcanic explanation hundreds of miles to the east, though it's more a reason for the Little Ice Age. My take is there is a thermohaline explanation to explain the abrupt changes, because there is a consistent pattern of the Earth rapidly warming, but the recovering cooling is slower forming a sawtooth pattern. Thermohaline circulation is a big guerilla that doesn't leave much evidence. How could you prove changes in the speed of currents if you aren't there to measure them?

I've often wondered if there is any place on these ice sheets that have started glaciating so long ago that still have a record of those early or earlier days locked in ice cores and believe there is. Using the rest of the Earth as an analogy, I wouldn't expect a continuous deposit from beginning to end, but even with ice, I would expect some area longer than 800 thousand years to survive in an isolated place like Antarctica. My take on Greenland is it would be hard to find records going back beyond the Eemian, even though glaciation started at least a couple of million years earlier. 

Before I start thinking of another tangent, has anything determined this area to be volcanic?

[Espen]

Anne;

But this hotspot, Vedel Sø, is about +/- 20 km2 at the moment, a pretty nice bathroom?

Changed size from +/- 30 to +/- 20 km2

[marsanges]

Hi

(first post here; does it work?) What a nice little theme Googling I found a pdf paper of an early expedition into the area:

http://www.igsoc.org:8080/journal/2/20/igs_journal_vol02_issue020_pg704-708_709.pdf


in there they write:

"An intermediate stage in the process of recession, resulting from starvation, is well illustrated
by the Pony Gletscher. Between the Revaltoppe and the area of alpine peaks, the ice cap extends
eastwards at a high altitude, about 1850 m. above sea level, and from this tongue of ice the Pony Gletscher flows into Vedel So, a lake which is dammed at its east end by the Ejnar Gletscher. "

That was in 1955... if it is an ice dammed lake then it doesnt really sound like volcanism would be in play. They also write:

"I venture to forecast that if there should be a further slight decrease in the height of the ice cap, there would ensue a relatively rapid shrinkage and disappearance of all the glaciers, leaving Dronning Louise Land as a deeply dissected, ice-free mountain upland."

So! Interesting !

[Espen]

Marsanges;

I read that paper too, and was aware of glacier situation / starvation question.
But as I recall this expedition was visiting the area April or May that year (1955), but why is the lake ice free as early as mid February, maybe even earlier, since Modis don't cover that area earlier than +/- February 23?

[ggelsrinc]

Timothy Leftwich, von Frese's former student and now a postdoctoral engineer at the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas, presented the study's early results on Thursday, December 13, 2007, at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

von Frese's team combined gravity measurements of the area taken by a Naval Research Laboratory aircraft with airborne radar measurements taken by research partners at the University of Kansas. The combined map revealed changes in mass beneath the Earth's crust, and the topography of the crust where it meets the ice sheet.

Source: http://www.touristclick.com/news/greenland/earths-heat.html

This second article, which basically says the same thing is dated Dec. 14, 2007.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Earth_Heat_Adds_To_Climate_Change_To_Melt_Greenland_Ice_999.html

[Anne]

Espen - yes, that is a rather large hot-tub! I am not a geologist, so couldn't say whether the same process could be at work here.

While I was googling around, I found this paper listing expeditions to this part of Greenland over the years. It would be interesting to know some of the observations of these parties, though I expect it would be fairly well known by now if one of them had spotted this body of ice-free water.
http://www.geus.dk/publications/bull/nr21/nr21_p017-116.pdf

It gives brief details of the parties, the date and purpose of visit, and what befell them - often bad weather. ETA: and, of course, details of the journal where the full report of eachcan be found.

-----

ggelsrinc, that's basically the same story as in the Science Daily report above. It would be good to find some follow-up.

[marsanges]

Hi Espen:

I´m not at all sure that I can help substantially. Your post piqued my interest that is all. Two more things:

(1) in the meantime I have found the service commentary to the geological map of the area at http://www.geus.dk/publications/maps/nr4-dk.htm --downloadable there. Usually, if there were an active volcanic center in the area, such a basic geological overview text would include it. It mentions atlantic dolerites (usual stuff, long since extinct) and quaternary glaciomorphology page 27-28 of the text; and nothing in between. That makes me seriously doubt that there is current volcanism there. Survey geologists tend to not miss such stuff. The conference posters mentioned above sound like they look for some; yet the area is a stable, normally inactive continental margin so one would need some more precise coordinates before one could link those abstracts to this specific lake?

(2) from your map I see that the area is actually dotted with lakes. first thing I would wonder is, are all the lakes there now already open? Can that be seen on the Modis? I am totally not sure that I can make it out through the haze, but wouldnt that be the first thing to check?

again, not sure if this helps in any way!

groeten, m.

[Espen]

Marsanges;

There will be hundreds of lakes in the area in a few weeks from now, but this one (Vedel Sø) is only one open from at least mid February, probably even before, Modis don't cover before February 23 due to darkness.

[ivica]

ggelsrinc, I do not have answer to your question.
Maybe the author, Nicholas Dahn, will give us more information.

[Jim Hunt]

Thanks for the heads up Espen. I'd never heard of Vedel Sø before 

I've recently taken to exploring these sort of things on WorldView, since it's easy to centre then flip from day to day. To find a similar looking image to yesterday's from last year I had to go as far forward as June 2nd.

http://earthdata.nasa.gov/labs/worldview/?map=-792672,-1474624,-390752,-1218368&products=baselayers.MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor~overlays.arctic_coastlines&time=2012-06-02T12:00:00&switch=arctic


 

[OldLeatherneck]

There seems to be a great deal of interest on the Forum with all of the recent glacial activity in Greenland this winter and early spring.  Since we all know that mass loss will result in isostatic rebound, I'm wondering whether extensive and rapid mass loss will result in increased seismic activity on Greenland.  The question I have is this: is it possible to have a seismic event that in itself would further fracture the calving fronts and rupture the ice damns??

Doe anyone know if there are any significant fault lines in the area??

[Espen]

Update;

As of today, we have a few extremely qualified people working on the mystery of Vedel Sø.
I spoke a few hours ago with a person, who actually visited the area, but not Vedel Sø though,
and I was told that he and his organization was not aware of this ice free lake, and especially not the reason for being in this ice free condition.
But he mentioned one logical aspect, the lake is over shaded by the land/hills Carlsbergfondet  to the south, so it was not because of the sun and heat from there???
And that is only pushing my interest and curiosity in the subject!!
But we will continue working on the matter, and reports will follow.   

[CraigsIsland]

There seems to be a great deal of interest on the Forum with all of the recent glacial activity in Greenland this winter and early spring.  Since we all know that mass loss will result in isostatic rebound, I'm wondering whether extensive and rapid mass loss will result in increased seismic activity on Greenland.  The question I have is this: is it possible to have a seismic event that in itself would further fracture the calving fronts and rupture the ice damns??

Doe anyone know if there are any significant fault lines in the area??

Great questions. To the east of greenland is the North America/Eurasian plate. A 6.6 was felt in Iceland last year. Not sure if that actually had any impact on greenland. Doesn't look like there's any major faults running through Greenland.

Article below states number of glacial seismic events has gone up considerably in the past few decades but doesn't say anything about impacts.

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/news/2006/03_23_06.htm

[Laurent]

What is striking me is the lack of snow around. If there is some thermal activity it should be visible on infrared pictures ! Do you have access to these ?
There is a lot of shadows from the nearby hills but yes there is no ice there !
It does seem to slighlty fluctuate !

[Shared Humanity]

.....rapid mass loss will result in increased seismic activity on Greenland.

I am sure I've read a couple of articles addressing the issue of rebound of the underlying ground as the mass of the GIS is reduced. As this pressure is reduced, the authors argued that seismic activity was bound to increase. If there are weak spots in the crust that are prone to vulcanism, shouldn't we expect them to become active?

[ccgwebmaster]

.....rapid mass loss will result in increased seismic activity on Greenland.

I am sure I've read a couple of articles addressing the issue of rebound of the underlying ground as the mass of the GIS is reduced. As this pressure is reduced, the authors argued that seismic activity was bound to increase. If there are weak spots in the crust that are prone to vulcanism, shouldn't we expect them to become active?

http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/41/2/227

This might be relevant? Recent but behind a paywall so not sure what it actually says - media articles based from it seem to think a tenfold increase in volcanoes on a timescale of centuries to millenia (the range of figures is in the abstract at least).

[HeisenIceBerg]

ccgwebmaster,

I got a copy of the full paper for you.  "A detection of Milankovitch frequencies in global volcanic activity", Kutterolf et al.  You can make a direct download from th button on the top bar.

Edit: I've created a new thread for taking requests for access to pay-walled publications and posting links to copies.  I've removed the link from this post; you can now find the link to the paper here.

Regards,
HeisenIceBerg

[ccgwebmaster]

... full paper ...

Thanks very much!

[CraigsIsland]

.....rapid mass loss will result in increased seismic activity on Greenland.

I am sure I've read a couple of articles addressing the issue of rebound of the underlying ground as the mass of the GIS is reduced. As this pressure is reduced, the authors argued that seismic activity was bound to increase. If there are weak spots in the crust that are prone to vulcanism, shouldn't we expect them to become active?

If Hurricane Sandy (just read: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/18/17814561-hurricane-sandy-lit-up-seismometers-across-us?lite could procure seismic vibrations, I would think some glacial activity could be picked up across Greenland.

[Shared Humanity]

Another GIS vulcanism question.......

We know that thick sea ice insulates the water beneath it so it does not freeze despite bitterly cold air temperatures. The GIS is generally more than 2 km thick. Would this thick ice actually serve to insulate the crust to the extent that hot magma could collect under the crust and serve to weaken or thin the crust, making it even more prone to vulcanism?

[CraigsIsland]

http://lance-modis.eosdis.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r02c03.2013126.terra

May 6th Terra image at 1km resolution. If you can't find Vedel So, I've attached a picture of the rectangle of where to look.

[Espen]

It is a strange place Vedel Sø. In February it looked like it was ice free, but now in June it looks frozen again, although you can clearly see the surrounding area is in melt mood (getting blue)??

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/imagery/subsets/?subset=Arctic_r02c03.2013157.aqua.250m

[NotaDenier]

Updating old threads

Lake is still open.

Edit: sentinel is way better! Sorry still learning.

https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/?v=427427.61589744926,-1445928.4305417319,578354.7310153302,-1324876.421973647&r=19.3310&p=arctic&t=2019-08-14-T13%3A50%3A40Z&l=Graticule,Reference_Labels(hidden),Reference_Features(hidden),Coastlines,VIIRS_SNPP_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Aqua_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor(hidden),MODIS_Terra_CorrectedReflectance_TrueColor

https://services.sentinel-hub.com/ogc/wms/b0eec84c-9a8b-4186-8bd1-b79f90329fab?version=1.1.1&service=WMS&request=GetMap&format=image%2Fjpeg&crs=EPSG%3A3857&layers=2_COLOR_INFRARED__VEGETATION_&bbox=-2781315%2C13569254%2C-2710687%2C13610759&time=2018-12-01T00%3A00%3A00.000Z%2F2019-06-25T23%3A59%3A59.000Z&width=944&height=543&showlogo=true&transparent=true&maxcc=56&evalscript=cmV0dXJuIFtCOEEqMixCMDMqMSxCMDIqMV0%3D&evalsource=S2&preview=3&nicename=Sentinel-2%20L1C%20image%20on%202019-06-25.jpg&bgcolor=000000