Thermal stress weathering and the spalling of Antarctic rocks

Abstract

AbstractUsing in situ field measurements, laboratory analyses, and numerical modeling, we test the potential efficacy of thermal stress weathering in the flaking of millimeter‐thick alteration rinds observed on cobbles and boulders of Ferrar Dolerite on Mullins Glacier, McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV). In particular, we examine whether low‐magnitude stresses, arising from temperature variations over time, result in thermal fatigue weathering, yielding slow crack propagation along existing cracks and ultimate flake detachment. Our field results show that during summer months clasts of Ferrar Dolerite experience large‐temperature gradients across partially detached alteration rinds (>4.7°C mm−1) and abrupt fluctuations in surface temperature (up to 12°C min−1); the latter are likely due to the combined effects of changing solar irradiation and cooling from episodic winds. The results of our thermal stress model, coupled with subcritical crack growth theory, suggest that thermal stresses induced at the base of thin alteration rinds ~2 mm thick, common on rocks exposed for ~105 years, may be sufficient to cause existing cracks to propagate under present‐day meteorological forcing, eventually leading to rind detachment. The increase in porosity observed within alteration rinds relative to unaltered rock interiors, as well as predicted decreases in rind strength based on allied weathering studies, likely facilitates thermal stress crack propagation through a reduction of fracture toughness. We conclude that thermal stress weathering may be an active, though undervalued, weathering process in hyperarid, terrestrial polar deserts such as the stable upland region of the MDV.