Kötlujökull transports considerable amounts of supraglacial debris at its snout because of frontal oscillations with frequent ice advances followed by ice-margin stagnation. Kötlujökull provides suitable conditions of studying dead-ice melting and landscape formation in a debris-charged lowland glacier environment. The scientific challenges are to answer the key questions. What are the conditions for dead-ice formation? From which sources does the sediment cover originate? Which melting and reworking processes act in the ice-cored moraines? What is the rate of de-icing in the ice-cored moraines under humid, sub-polar conditions? Does this rate differ from rates reported from polar environments of dry continental nature? How will the sedimentary architecture appear in the geological record? How will the final landsystem appear?

These key questions are answered in a review of research and conclusions on dead-ice melting and landscape formation from Kötlujökull. Processes and landform-sediment associations are linked to the current climate and glacier–volcano interaction.