AN UPDATED GLACIAL AND PERIGLACIAL INVENTORY OF THE RIO MENDOZA BASIN IN THE CENTRAL ANDES OF ARGENTINA (1:250,000)

LAURA ZALAZAR; LIDIA FERRI HIDALGO; MARIANO CASTRO; SILVIA DELGADO

Fluctuations of Glaciers

University of Zurich

Año: 2012; p. 58 - 58

We present an updated glacial and periglacial inventory of the Río Mendoza Basin in theAndes of central Western Argentina based on ASTER and ALOS scenes from 2009, 2010and 2011. Clean ice and perennial snowfields were identified by an automatic extractiontechnique whereas debris-covered glaciers and rock glaciers were manually digitized onthe screen. We identified 1,611 glacial and periglacial landforms that cover a total areaof 570.67 km2 distributed between 2,958 m a.s.l. and 6,900 m a.s.l.. The results werevalidated through several field campaigns performed in different sectors of the basin inthe summer of 2012. Different glaciers and rock glaciers were surveyed in order to checktheir location, current state, and primary classification. The field surveys were complementedwith photographs and GPS data. A comparison with a previous inventory of thisbasin based on aerial photographs from 1963 (Corte and Espizua 1981) shows an importantrecession of clean-ice glaciers, which is not as evident on debris-covered glaciers androck glaciers. This new inventory of the Río Mendoza Basin will be part of the NationalGlacial and Periglacial Inventory of Argentina which is currently under way under thecoordination of IANIGLA.