Microseismic activity within a serac zone in an alpine glacier (Glacier d'Argentieire, Mont Blanc, France)

Abstract : A passive seismic study was carried out underneath Glacier d'Argentiere, Mont Blanc, France, where an array of seismometers was installed in a subglacial access tunnel. The data show a very high emissivity from the glacier. Fracturing can be discriminated from serac falls using the signal characteristics. We apply seismic array methods to locate the sources of these signals, using a two-step grid search in the parameter space. Four clusters of activity are found close to the network, showing that this fracturing does not take place uniformly over the glacier, but rather in isolated small zones. We compute a local magnitude using regional earthquakes for calibration. The magnitudes follow a classical Gutenberg-Richter law in the range M-L = -3 to 0.15, showing that no characteristic size events dominate the process. We suggest that those spatial clusters of icequakes could reveal the heterogeneous nature of the friction at the base of the glacier, with patches of high frictional stresses locally generating intense fracturing within the ice mass.