Brittle zone and air-hydrate formation in polar ice sheets

• Main Authors: Tsutomu Uchida, Paul Duval, Volodya Ya. Lipenkov, Takeo Hondoh, Shinji Mae, Hitoshi Shoji
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Hokkaido National Industrial Research Institute/Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Geophysique de l'Environnement/The Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute/The Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University/Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University/Kitami Institute of Technology 1994
• Subjects: Antarc*; Antarctica; ice core; Memoirs of National Institute of Polar Research; Polar Research
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=2234; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00002234/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=2234&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

Microscopic observations of air bubbles and air-hydrate crystals included in the Vostok ice cores, Antarctica, revealed that badly fractured ices were observed in the ice cores having high concentration of air bubbles. They also showed that the transformation of air bubbles to air-hydrate crystals reduced the chance of ice core fracture. In this paper, we suggest a fracture model of an ice core including air bubbles to discuss the depth dependence of ice core brittleness.