The Thermal and Compositional Structure of the Koettlitz

• Main Authors: Igor A. Zotikov, Yirop A. Thkob, Anthony J. Gow
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Dailey Islands; Debenham; Gow; McMurdo Sound; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1000.1434; http://eprints.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2115/20318/1/1_p469-478.pdf

The floating tongue has attracted attention of glaciologists since Debenham had found remains of fish, corals, sponges, and other remains of sea creatures at the surface of the tongue near the Dailey Islands, McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. To explain the presence of the sea remains at the surface a hypothesis was suggested about freezing of sea water at the bottom of the tongue and ablation at the surface, and as the result of lifting the remians had been caught by freezing at the bottom of the tongue. Gow had explained the existence of the remains at the surface differently but in spite of that the question about the possibility of freezing at the bottom of the tongue has not been answered. A hole about 20 m deep had been drilled in the tongue near the Dailey Islands in October 1965 to find out, what kind of processes occurred within the tongue. Temperatures had been measured and cores had been taken throughout the hole. The theoretical analysis had shown that the measured temperatures corresponded with the moving upwards of the ice within the glacier, i. e. there is ablation at the surface and freezing at the bottom of the tongue. The intensity of the ablation at the surface has been estimated as about 1.5 m of ice per year, freezing at the bottom-about 0.5 m per year. It was shown that freezing of that kind can take place, if there was a water layer with lower salinity between the bottom of the tongue and the sea water below this layer. An analysis of the structure and composition of the cores has shown that deeper layers of the ice consist of ice formed from sea water. I.