Geology, Vol. 1 [of 3]

by Thomas C. Chamberlin; Rollin D. Salisbury

Accumulated motion in the terminal part of a glacier.—However slight the relative motion of one granule on its neighbor, the granules in any part of a glacier partake in the accumulated motion of all parts nearer the source, and hence all are thrust forward. Herein appears to lie the distinctive nature of glacial movement. Each part of a stream of water feels the hydrostatic pressure of neighboring parts (theoretically equal in all directions) and the momentum of motion, but not the rigid thrust of the mass behind. Lava streams are good types of viscous fluids flowing in masses comparable to those of glaciers and on similar slopes, and, in their last stages, at similar rates, but their special modes of flow and their effects on the sides and bottoms of their paths are radically different from those of glaciers. Forceful abrasion, and particularly the rigid holding of imbedded stones while they score and groove the rock beneath, is unknown in lava streams and is scarcely conceivable. There is, so far as we know, no experimental or natural evidence that any typical viscous body in flowing over a rugose bottom detaches and picks up fragments and holds them as graving tools in its base so fixedly as to cut deep, long, straight grooves in the hard bottom over which it flows. It would seem that competency to do this peculiar class of work, which is distinctive of glaciers, should be demonstrated before the viscous theory of glacial movement is accepted as even a good working hypothesis. Somewhat in contrast with viscous movement, it is conceived that a glacier is thrust forward rigidly by internal elongation, shears forcibly over its sides and bottoms, and leaves its distinctive marks upon them.

Fig. 293.—Shearing plane well defined. A Spitsbergen glacier. (Hamberg.)

Auxiliary Elements.

Shearing.—In the lower portion of a glacier where normally the thrusts are greatest, the granules fewest, and their interlocking most intimate, shearing takes place within the ice itself. This is illustrated by the accompanying [Figs., 292–295]. The shearing results in the foliation of the ice and in the forcing of débris between the sheared layers. Thus the ice becomes loaded in a special englacial or baso-englacial fashion, as previously mentioned and illustrated in [Fig. 268].

Within the zone of shearing, it is probable that the gliding planes of the crystals come into effective function. It is thought that the combined effect of the vertical pressure, the forward thrust, and the basal drag of the ice, may be to increase the number of granules whose gliding planes are parallel to the glacier’s bottom. At any rate, Drygalski reports[136] that there is a tendency to such an arrangement in the basal portion of the Greenland glaciers at their borders. It is conceived that where strong thrusts are brought to bear upon such a mass of granules, those whose gliding planes are parallel to the direction of thrust are strained with sufficient intensity to cause the plates to slide over each other, while those which are not parallel to the direction of thrust are either rotated into parallelism—when they also yield—or are pressed aside out of the plane of shear. As previously noted, shearing is observed to occur chiefly where the ice below the plane of shearing is protected more or less from the force of the thrust. It perhaps also occurs where the basal ice becomes so overloaded with débris that it is incapable of ready movement.

Fig. 294.—Portion of the lateral margin of a North Greenland glacier. Shows upturning of the layers at the base, the cleanness of the ice above the bottom, and, possibly, shearing.

It is also probable that sharp differential strain and shearing are developed at the level where the surface-water of the warm season, descending into the ice, reaches the zone of freezing. The expanding of the freezing water at the upper limit of the cold zone may cause the layer expanded by it to shear over that below. As the level of freezing is lowered with the advance of the warm season, the zone of shearing also sinks. This may be regarded as an auxiliary agency of shearing, of application to a special horizon.

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.