Geology, Vol. 1 [of 3] : $b Geologic processes and their resultsSalisbury, Rollin D.
Science
Geology, Vol. 1 [of 3] : $b Geologic processes and their results
Salisbury, Rollin D.
Geology
=High temperature and water.=—In the zone of waste, a higher
temperature and more water lend their aid to the fundamental
agencies of movement, and there is need for these aids to promote a
proportionate movement, for here the granules are more intimately
interlocked and the ice more compact and inherently more solid and
rigid. The average temperature is, however, near the melting-point (p.
276), and during the warm season the ice is bathed in water so that
the necessary changes in the crystals are facilitated, and movement
apparently takes place even more readily than in the more open granular
portion of lower temperature and dryer state. The extraordinary
movements of certain tongues of ice in some of the great fiords of
Greenland are probably due to the convergence of very thick slow-moving
ice from the interior into basins leading down to the fiords. Into the
same basins a large amount of surface-water is concentrated at the same
time, with the result that the thick ice, bathed with water and having
a high gradient, develops unusual velocity during the warm season.
[Illustration: +Fig.+ 295.—Lateral margin of a North Greenland glacier,
Inglefield Gulf region. The overhanging edges of the successive
layers are not altogether the result of shear. They are due in part
at least to differential melting along the lines where débris comes
to the surface. The débris planes may be shear planes.]
=Applications.=—By a studious consideration of the coöperation of the
auxiliary agencies with the fundamental ones, the peculiarities of
glacial movement may apparently be explained. In regions of intense
cold, where a dry state and low temperature prevail, as in the heart
of Greenland, the snow-ice mass may accumulate to extraordinary
thicknesses, for the burden of movement seems to be thrown almost
wholly upon compression, with the slight aid of molecular changes due
to internal evaporation and allied inefficient processes. Since the
temperature in the upper part of the ice is very adverse (see p. 277),
the compression must be great before it becomes effective in melting
the ice, and hence the great thickness of the mass antecedent to much
motion. Similar conditions more or less affect the heads of alpine
glaciers, though here the high gradients favor motion with lesser
thicknesses of ice; but in the lower reaches of alpine glaciers, where
the temperatures are near the melting-point, and the ice is bathed in
water, movement may take place in ice which is thin and compact.
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