9319698 Humphrey This award is for support of a Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) to document and analyze a surge, which is in progress, on the Bering Glacier in Alaska. Surging is defined as periodic, very rapid movements of large quantities of ice within a glacier, alternating with much longer periods of near stagnation. The Bering Glacier is the longest (191 kilometers) and largest (5,173.5 square kilometers) glacier in North America. This study will monitor the basal hydrology of the surge, by monitoring outlet streams that emerge from the glacier at different elevations. Automated observations of water, suspended, and dissolved loads from glacial outlets will monitor the subglacial hydraulics which, according to present understanding, control the propagation of surges. ***
