SHRINKING glaciers in Alaska could trigger earthquakes in the region as tectonic plates in the Earth’s crust move more freely, relieved of the massive weight of the ice.
Jeanne Sauber of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Bruce Molnia of the US Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia, used GPS satellite signals and computer models to study southern Alaskan glaciers and found that many had shrunk or disappeared over the last 100 years due to rising temperatures and changes in precipitation. For instance, the Muir glacier dramatically disintegrated between 1899 and 2003, as seen in the two pictures above.…
