Some Observations on the Behavior of the Liquid and Gas Phases in Temperate Glacier Ice

Abstract

Microscopic and textural observations were made on ice samples cored from Blue Glacier slightly below the equilibrium line to depths of 60 m. Observations were started within a few minutes after collection. Water was found in veins along three-grain intersections, in lenses on grain boundaries and in irregular shapes. Gas was found in bubbles in the interior of crystals, in bubbles touching veins, and locally in veins. Vein sizes showed some spread; average cross-sectional area was about 7 × 10−4 mm2 with no discernible, trend with texture or depth except within 7 m of the surface. Before the samples were examined they could have experienced a complex relaxation which could have changed them significantly. As a result it is not possible to determine the in situ size of veins, but an upper limit can be determined. Also it is not possible to predict intergranular water flux per unit area, but 1 × 10−1 m a−1 represents an upper limit. In coarse-grained ice the water flux density is likely to be even smaller, because of a low density of veins, and blocking by bubbles. This indicates that only a very small fraction of the melt-water production on a typical summer day can penetrate into the glacier on an intergranular scale except possibly near the surface. The existence of conduit-like features in several cores suggests that much melt water can nevertheless penetrate the ice locally without large-scale lateral movements along the glacier surface. The observed profile of ice temperature indicates that the intergranular water flux may be much smaller than the upper limit determined from the core samples.