Geophysical potentials in glacial and periglacial environments in the Alps.

The understanding of the geometry and of the physical properties of the alpine glaciers as well as of the frozen sediments represents a major breakthrough to support detailed reconstruction of the recent and of the past climate changes. The utilization of geophysical imaging techniques to address these issues became fairly popular and in the last decade several authors reported successful cases of exploration. The modern instruments deliver better and cheaper resolving power although in many cases severe logistical problems should be faced to collect the data in such extreme environments. Robust data interpretation is still somewhat lacking as the complexity of elastic, electrical and magnetic settings of the subsurface is often beyond geophysical resolution. Numerical modeling of the physical properties and of the associated response could be a valuable tool in the interpretation of such complexities. We report here about several cases of integrated geophysical exploration of alpine glaciers (Adamello, Cevedale, Agola, Montasio, etc), of debris-covered glaciers and of areas characterized by permafrost. Different geophysical methods, using 2D and 3D geometry, were combined in all these experiments in order to constrain interpretation. Furthermore forward modeling was often utilized to gain a better insight in possible data processing artifacts and as a primary aid to assist the interpretation process.