Archives West Finding Aid

The Variegated Glacier at Yakutat, Alaska, is a surge-type glacier originating on the Alaska/Yukon border flowing westward about 20 km (13 miles) to Russell Fjord, near its entry to Yakutat Bay. Surges have occurred about every one to two decades. The surge of 1982-1983 and the buildup to it over the previous decade were studied by the University of Alaska, the University of Washington, and the California Institute of Technology with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation.

As part of the work, time-lapse cameras of various designs and formats were deployed on various time scales to examine changes on a regular basis. Among these cameras were simple Super 8mm movie cameras triggered by custom clocks, designed and built at the University of Washington, enabling the gathering of single frames at programmable intervals.

The main purpose of these small format, relatively inexpensive Super 8mm cameras was to monitor streams draining water from the glacier to determine the timing of major water discharge events just prior to and during the surge. Super 8mm cameras were deployed in 1981, 1982, and 1983. Some were deployed high on the sides of the valley to record major changes in glacier speed and morphology of the ice surface. Although quality is not ideal, these cameras provided a practical means to get baseline data from many locations in the face of difficult environmental conditions including clouds, deep snow, avalanches, and bears. These films provide educational illumination of surge motion of a glacier and the dynamics of streams subject to variable sediment load and water discharge.

Produced by the University of Washington and the University of Alaska