The Home of the Blizzard: Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914Mawson, Douglas, Sir
History
The Home of the Blizzard: Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914
Mawson, Douglas, Sir
Antarctica -- Discovery and exploration; Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914)
The continental glacier moves down to the sea, regularly but slowly; the
rate of movement of some portions of the adjacent coastal ice cliffs was
found to be one hundred feet per annum. The rocky promontory at Winter
Quarters, acting as an obstacle, reduces the motion of the ice to
an annual rate measured in inches only. Perhaps the conditions now
prevailing are those of a comparative "drought," for there is clear
evidence that our small promontory was at one time completely enveloped.
In a broad way this is illustrated by the topography, but the final
proof came when Stillwell and others discovered rock-faces polished and
grooved by the ice.
Whatever "ice-floods" there may have been in the past, the position of
the margin of the glacier must have remained for a long period in its
present situation. The evidence for this is found in the presence of
a continuous, terminal moraine, at or just in advance of the present
ice-front. This moraine, an accumulation of stones of all kinds brought
to their present resting-place by the ice-sheet, was in itself a
veritable museum. Rocks, showing every variety in colour and form, were
assembled, transported from far and wide over the great expanse of the
continent.
[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]
A section of the coastal slope of the Continental Ice Sheet inland from
Winter Quarters, Adelie Land
Stillwell found these moraines a "happy hunting-ground" for the
geologist. His plane-table survey and rock collections are practical
evidence of work carried out in weather which made it seldom short of an
ordeal.
The story of the buried land to the south is in large measure revealed
in the samples brought by the ice and so conveniently dumped. Let us
swiftly review the operations leading to the deposition of this natural
museum.
As the ice of the hinterland moves forward, it plucks fragments from
the rocky floor. Secure in its grip, these are used as graving-tools
to erode its bed. Throwing its whole weight upon them it grinds and
scratches, pulverizes and grooves. The rocky basement is gradually
reduced in level, especially the softer regions. The tools are faceted,
polished and furrowed, for ever moving onwards. Finally, the rock-powder
or "rock-flour," as it is termed, and the boulders, thenceforth known
as "erratics," arrive at the terminal ice-face. Here, the melting due to
the sun's heat keeps pace with the "on-thrust" and some of the erratics
may remain stationary, or else, floating in the sea, a berg laden with
boulders breaks off and deposits its load in the depths of the ocean.
Each summer the ice-face above the rocks at Winter Quarters thawed back
a short distance and the water ran away in rivulets, milky-white on
account of the "rock-flour" in suspension. The pebbles and boulders too
heavy to be washed away remained behind to form the moraine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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