Fantastic glacier cave pics on UKClimbing

mikem

Well-known member
Iceland: https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/author.php?id=77052

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Mike​
 

mikem

Well-known member
Not at the same standard, but also of interest, in Svalbard:
https://www.ukclimbing.com/images/dbpage.php?id=307342
 

Joe Duxbury

Member
Have you noticed that the scalloping of the walls of these glacier caves is just like that of limestone cave passages? But with the ice, is there any other process involved than simply the flow of water?
 

SamT

Moderator
Joe Duxbury said:
Have you noticed that the scalloping of the walls of these glacier caves is just like that of limestone cave passages? But with the ice, is there any other process involved than simply the flow of water?

I worked on an expedition to a glacier in Alaska about 10 years ago, at the height of my caving.  I was gobsmacked by similarity of the all the features of a glacier has to those of karst limestone. 
Caves, joints, folds, canyons, meanders, cascades, crabwalks, swallets, resurgences etc etc.

Then I started thinking about it.

limestone is layers and layers of sediment, compressed into rock over multi - millennia, then heaved, and folded created faults and joints, which are acted upon by water, to form all the known features.

With glaciers, its exactly the same, but speeded up slightly.  Layer upon layer of snow, compressed to form solid ice, heaved and folded to for joints and acted upon by water to .... well form all the known features.

There are even 'phreatic' zones, forming tubes, which can then be abandoned and cut with vadose tranches. .. its all there to see!!


 

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