Sea-floor morphology outside a grounded, surging glacier; Braasvellbreen, Svalbard

Acoustical profiling and bottom photography reveal several different sea-floor morphological features adjacent to the grounded Braasvellbreen glacier on Svalbard, northwestern Barents Sea. Some of the features and their distribution may be closely related to a major glacial surge in 1936-1938, and as such are valuable in identifying former surges in other locations. A continuous, wide ridge with a characteristic asymmetrical cross-section, running subparalled to the glacier, is the end moraine defining the maximum extent of the surge. A large part of the material forming this ridge is most likely rapidly deposited from meltwater during the surge.