The determination of permafrost creep using dendrogeomorphological techniques, which depend on the occurrence of trees or shrubs, was conducted on two rockglaciers. The plants sampled were between 20 and 35 years old and thus cover the same period as the data from photogrammetrical measurements (Roer 2005). On one active permafrost body, the increase in horizontal velocity at the beginning of the 1990s is clearly reflected in the reaction wood. However, since only one tree of this rockglacier was examined the informative value is limited.
On the other rockglacier, anatomical variations were investigated in roots of several shrubs with digital imagery in order to statistically quantify them. Due to the first-time application of wood anatomy in rockglacier research and little experience in the interpretation of the new data, it was not possible to conclude with absolute certainty whether the observed growth variations result from low ground thermal conditions, from movements of the permafrost body or a combination of both factors. However, the application of this technique in rockglacier studies nevertheless appears to be feasible and the findings are promising.
The combination of the described methods provides a good opportunity to thoroughly describe and analyse rockglacier kinematics. Hence, the presented study opens a new method for a careful interpretation of the complex responses of the considered geosystem in the context of changing environments along with significant warming in mountain geosystems (cf., Kääb et al., in press).