GLACIOLOGICAL STUDIES IN THE HIGH CENTRAL ANDES USING DIGITAL PROCESSING OF SATELLITE IMAGES

Inaccessibility and the high cost of systematic survey have made remot e sensing the most appropriate monitoring technique to study the glaci ers in the high Central Andes. The sparse information that is availabl e on the glaciers of the Argentine Central Andes is mainly concentrate d on the Plomo River headwaters. Through digital processing of satelli te images, the positions of glacier fronts in the Plomo catchment were updated for the 1974-1992 period; this completed the mapping of the f rontal positions that began in 1909. Digital processing included histo gram equalization and normalization, as well as color composites; the images were first geometrically corrected. The results indicate that d uring recent years most of the glaciers have been advancing, within a long-term trend of generalized retreat.