Adrián Martínez Fernández, the technician in charge of the Digital Mapping and 3D Analysis Laboratory at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), is the lead author of a paper published in the journal Remote Sensing on the evolution of the surface of the La Paúl rock glacier in the Posets massif, in the Aragonese Pyrenees, whose results show a downslope movement of almost 40 cm per year between 2013 and 2020 over a large part of its surface. 

Distributed over many mountain regions all over the world, these lobular or tongue-shaped masses comprising debris, which move downslope as the ice inside becomes deformed, can furnish information about the behavior of the permafrost and the climatic and paleoclimatic evolution of mountain regions. Permafrost means permanently frozen ground, one of the fundamental components of the cryosphere, and it is an integral part of the global climate system. 

In studying rock glaciers, applying multiple geomatic techniques (drones, 3D laser scanners and satellite positioning systems) helps us learn more about how these landforms behave. As Martínez Fernández explains, the synergy of these techniques “means we have precise knowledge of the rock glacier and can pin down the evolution of its surface with a detail and periodicity unprecedented in this region.”

This research, funded by the ministerial projects CGL2015-68144-R and PID2020-113247RB-C21, is the outcome of collaboration between the CENIEH and the Natural Heritage and Applied Geography Recognized Research Group (GIR PANGEA) of the Universidad de Valladolid, which is leading the monitoring work with the support of the Universidad de Extremadura. The other participants were researchers from the geography departments at the Universidad de Cantabria and the Universidad de León.