%0 Dataset
%T Research on the leaping glacier "Korka"
%J Arid Land Ecology and Resources Science Data Center
%I Arid Land Ecology and Resources Science Data Center(data.dcxjegi.cn)
%U https://data.dcxjegi.cn/portal/metadata/fce172b8-6fb9-449d-af02-6d7e3f078d1e
%W NCDC
%R 10.12389/ariddc.02315
%A Documentation Information Center
%K Glacier water resources;Mountain glaciers
%X In the autumn of 1969, a catastrophic advance of the Kolka Glacier was detected in the Genaldon River basin near the city of Ordzhonikidze. This attracted the attention of specialists in various fields, particularly glaciologists. The already tense situation was aggravated by local residents’ fragmentary recollections of the enormous “Genaldon catastrophe” of 1902. A special commission dispatched to the area in October 1969 confirmed that the Kolka Glacier had advanced considerably, reaching the Maili Glacier. Its activity then declined sharply toward the end of October. No dangerous accumulation of water was discovered within the glacier basin, and it was therefore concluded that the sudden advance had ended and that the threat of destruction in the area had disappeared.At the beginning of November, however, the glacier resumed its powerful advance, which continued until early January 1970. Despite the extremely gentle gradient of the valley, the glacier front sometimes advanced at a rate of several tens of meters per day, while the advancing glacier tongue reached a thickness of 130 meters. Between early November and early January, the glacier moved two kilometers down the valley, burying the exceptionally valuable mineral springs of Upper Karmadon and creating a genuine threat of subsequent outburst floods, flooding, and eruptions of water and ice.It was evident that the advance of the Kolka Glacier was not an accidental event comparable to the “collapses” known from the literature, but rather the result of a complex interaction among numerous natural processes in the glacial zone, most of which remained unknown. The task, therefore, was to conduct a rigorous glaciological investigation of this rapid glacier surge in order to develop a sound and practicable program of monitoring, forecasting, and protective measures. It was also necessary to determine the true causes, regularities, and possible scale of such phenomena, which are of great importance for the develo