Geology, Vol. 1 [of 3]

by Thomas C. Chamberlin; Rollin D. Salisbury

Figures to illustrate the method of deformation of ice crystals.

While the crystals of a glacier usually have their principal axes in various directions, there appears to be a tendency for them to approach parallelism in certain positions, especially in the basal parts of a glacier near its terminus. Observations on this point are not so full and critical as could be desired, but it is probable that the parallel orientation is partly general, and due to the vertical pressure of the ice, and partly special and local, and connected with the shearing planes and foliation.

The bearing of this partial parallelism of the crystals on shearing and foliation is supposed to reside in the fact that a crystal of ice is made up of a series of plates arranged at right angles to the principal axis of the crystal. These plates may be likened to a pile of cards, the principal axis being represented by a line vertical to them. If a cube be cut from a large crystal of ice, it will behave much like a cube cut from the pile of cards. If the cube be so placed that its plates are horizontal ([Fig. 291]a), and if it be rested on supports at two edges and heavily weighted in the middle, it will sag, the plates sliding slightly over one another so as to give oblique ends, but in this case the cube offers considerable resistance to deformation. If the cube be so placed that the plates stand on edge, each reaching from support to support ([Fig. 291]b), it will offer very great resistance to deformation; but if the plates be vertical and transverse to the line joining the supports, as in [Fig. 291]c, the middle portion will sag under very moderate weighting by the sliding of the plates on one another, and in a comparatively short time the middle portion may be pushed entirely out, dividing the cube. These properties have been demonstrated by McConnel[135] and Mügge, and they appear to throw light on certain phases of the action of glaciers that are most pronounced in their basal parts, and are best illustrated in arctic glaciers.

The Probable Fundamental Element in Glacial Motion.

Melting and freezing.—It has already been shown ([p. 279]) that the initial or fundamental cause of glacial motion must be operative at the heads of glaciers where the temperature is lowest and the material most loosely granular. In this condition, there is reason to believe that motion takes place between the grains, rather than by their distortion through the displacement of their laminæ. The fact that the granular structure is not destroyed, as it would be by the indefinite sliding of the crystal plates over each other, sustains this view. The inference is that the gliding planes play a notable rôle in glacial movement only in the basal parts of the lower ends of glaciers, where the greatest thrusts are developed, and where the granules have become largest and most completely interlocked. At the heads of glaciers, where motion is initiated, there may be great downward pressure, but not vigorous thrusts from behind, and probably only moderate thrusts developed within the body itself. There seems therefore no escape from the conclusion that the primal cause of glacial motion is one which may operate even under the relatively low temperatures, the relatively dry conditions, and the relatively granular textures which affect the heads of glaciers. These considerations lead to the view that movement takes place by the minute individual movements of the grains upon one another. While they are in the spheroidal form, as in the névé, this would not seem to be at all difficult. They may rotate and slide over each other as the weight of the snow increases; but as they become interlocked by growth, both rotation and sliding must apparently encounter more resistance. The amount of rotary motion required of an individual granule is, however, surprisingly small, and the meltings and refreezings incident to shifting pressures and tensions, and to the growth of the granules, seem adequate to meet the requirements. In order to account for a movement of three feet per day in a glacier six miles long, the mean motion of the average granule relative to its neighbor would be, roundly, ¹⁄₁₀₀₀₀ of its own diameter per day, or one diameter in 10,000 days; in other words, it would change its relations to its neighbors to the extent of its diameter in about thirty years. A change of so great slowness under the conditions of granular alteration can scarcely be thought incredible, or even improbable, in spite of the interlocking which the granules may develop. The movement is supposed to be permitted chiefly by the temporary passage of minute portions of the granules into the fluid form at the points of greatest compression, the transfer of the moisture to adjoining points, and its resolidification. The points of greatest compression are obviously just those whose yielding most promotes motion, and a successive yielding of the points that come in succession to oppose motion most (and thus to receive the greatest stresses) permits continuous motion. It is merely necessary to assume that the gravity of the accumulated mass is sufficient to produce the minute temporary liquefaction at the points of greatest stress, the result being accomplished not so much by the lowering of the melting-point as by the development of heat by pressure.

Fig. 292.—Portion of the east face of Bowdoin glacier, North Greenland, showing oblique upward thrust, with shear.

This conception of glacial “flowage” involves only the momentary liquefaction of minute portions of the mass, while the ice as a whole remains rigid, as its crystalline nature requires. Instead of assigning a slow viscous fluidity like that of asphalt to the whole mass, which seems inconsistent with its crystalline character, it assigns a free fluidity to a succession of particles that form only a minute fraction of the whole at any instant.

This conception is consistent with the retention of the granular condition of the ice, with the heterogeneous (in the main) orientation of the crystals, with the rigidity and brittleness of the ice, and with its strictly crystalline character, a character which a viscous liquid does not possess however much its high viscosity may make it resemble a rigid body.