Seismic Monitoring of Glacier Activity on Svalbard (SEISMOGLAC) - Datasets

Climatic change is of incredible importance in the polar regions as ice-sheets and glaciers respond strongly to change in average temperature. The analysis of seismic signals (icequakes) emitted by glaciers (i.e., cryo-seismology) is thus gaining importance as a tool for monitoring glacier activity. To understand the scaling relation between regional glacier-related seismicity and actual small-scale local glacier dynamics and to calibrate the identified classes of icequakes to locally observed waveforms, a temporary passive seismic monitoring experiment was conducted in the vicinity of the calving front of Kronebreen, one of the fastest tidewater glaciers on Svalbard (Fig. 1). By combining the local observations with recordings of the nearby GEOFON station GE.KBS, the local experiment provides an ideal link between local observations at the glacier to regional scale monitoring of NW Spitsbergen. During the 4-month operation period from May to September 2013, eight broadband seismometers and three 4-point short-period arrays were operating around the glacier front of Kronebreen.