Inventory and monitoring of cryoforms and cryogenic processes in the Central Andes of Mendoza, Argentina: birth and extinction of a periglacial lake

DARIO TROMBOTTO LIAUDAT; GABRIELA LENZANO; MARIANO CASTRO

Tenth International Conference on Permafrost

The Northern Publisher

Lugar: Salekhard; Año: 2012; p. 419 - 424

New inventories of rock glaciers in the Cordillera del Tigre (32º 11? S, 32º 45? S) and the Cordón del Plata (32º 40? S, 33º 24? S) were made with manual digitizing of ASTER images and interpretation of photographs. The Cordillera del Tigre (NW Mendoza) has a surface with possible permafrost of approximately 1171 km2, and the Cordón del Plata has 956 km2 . The lower permafrost limit was estimated to be 3600 m a.s.l. In the Cordillera del Tigre, 182 new active rock glaciers were counted, with an average surface of 0.35 km2 and an area of about 64 km2. The largest rock glacier comprises a surface of 2.37 km2. Rock glaciers appear preferably when their detritic and nival feeding zone has a southerly orientation. The lower limit of uncovered ice lies at approximately 4300 m a.s.l. A build-up of the creeping permafrost generated a lake of approximately 7.9 ha on one of the tributaries of the Mendoza River.