Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T12:07:12.564Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Hardness of Ice and Aerial Erosion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2017

Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Many authorities have demonstrated that the hardness of ice varies inversely as the temperature, which is, of course, to be expected by analogy with metals. Recently Dr. E. Blackwelder1 caused some experiments to he made at a temperature of −78.5° C., the temperature of solid carbon dioxide. At this temperature the hardness of ice was found to be approximately 6, or that of orthoclase felspar. Hitherto it had been assumed that aerial corrosion of rocks close to glaciers and snow-fields was in the main due to rock dust. It now seems likely that when air temperatures fall very low, as for instance during blizzards, ice fragments or snow could abrade certain limestones and shales and even some igneous rocks. Ice and snow may therefore play a more important part in aerial erosion than had been suspected.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © International Glaciological Society 1947

References

1 Am. Journ. Science, Vol. 238, 1940, pp. 61–2.