A preliminary inventory of rock glaciers in NW Argentina using ALOS data

DANIEL FALASCHI

Frascati

Workshop; DUE Permafrost 2014; 2014

We present here the first detailed rock glacier inventory of the Valles Calchaquíes region of Salta, Argentina, based on 2.5 m resolution ALOS (Advanced Land Observing Satellite) PRISM satellite images. A total of 496 units, which account for ca. 59 km2 were identified. Rock glacier outlines were manually digitized and preliminarily, three generations of landforms were detected following morphological criteria (active, inactive and fossil rock glaciers), with the lower limit of discontinuous mountain permafrost being located at ca. 4600 m a.s.l. In order to validate these results, the preliminary nature of the classification presented here needs additional, detailed analyses such as geophysical, Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (DInSAR) or photogrammetric surveys. Since rock glaciers are protected by law in Argentina, our results represent an important contribution to the knowledge of the periglacial features in this poorly known region outside the main Andean range.