Experience with the calibration and field use of mercury-in-glass calorimeter thermometers provides an indication of the accuracy attainable and the necessary corrections to obtain that accuracy. Secular changes as large as 57 mK have been observed during the first three years of thermometer use. Light physical tapping is found to reduce the thermometer readings by 3–6 mK. Corrections for variations in the external and internal bulb pressure and care to avoid parallax are necessary to obtain the best accuracy in field measurements. The best accuracy obtainable with these thermometers for temperature measurements near 0°C is approximately ±4 mK for laboratory measurements and ±5 mK for field measurements.

A temperature controller is described which uses a thermistor sensor and electrical heating to maintain the temperature of a small bath of fluid to within a few millidegrees.

The depths and diameters of 158 cryoconite holes were measured at ten positions in the ablation zone of Sermikavsak, West Greenland. It was found that the depths increased on going up the glacier in agreement with other measurements made earlier on polar glaciers. There was no significant correlation of depth with diameter. The relative importance of the combined short- and long-wavelength radiation balances and the transfer of heat by convectional mixing in water-filled holes is discussed. The variations in depth are attributed to changes in the albedo and the bulk extinction coefficient of the surface ice layers on the glacier.

This note is addressed to the determination of the in-plane components of stress in floating ice sheets due to gravity and the hydrostatic pressure in the water. The distribution and magnitude of these stresses are of interest with regard to crack propagation in sea ice. Two cases are considered. In the first, the ice sheet is formed on land by accretion at the top surface and then introduced into the water, such as happens in the Antarctic. In the second, the ice is formed in the water by accretion on the bottom, which is the usual situation in the Arctic pack ice.

This paper considers the contribution made to overall glacier flow by deformation of an unlithified bed. The flow pattern in deforming till beneath a glacier is determined for the case of a uniform ice slab resting on a uniform thick till bed. The results obtained show that, once the till is saturated, very little surplus water is needed to produce high velocities in the till near the ice−till interface, the interface velocity varying as the 5/2 power of the surplus water concentration. This sensitivity to water content suggests that this may be a mechanism inducing glacier surging.

Measurements of the event rate of natural, small-amplitude displacement accelerations in potential fracture zones of avalanches prove to be good indications for decrease of stability.

Sorted circles and nets formed on the surface of the principal medial moraine on Storbreen, Jotunheimcn, Norway, are described. These consist of “islands” of coarse sand, granules, and small pebbles, surrounded by pebbles and cobbles and underlain by small domes of glacier ice. It is suggested that patterned ground formation on the moraine results from differential ablation in areas of thin (<200 mm) debris cover near the glacier snout, where melting is relatively rapid. It is unlikely that supraglacial patterned ground could survive deposition.

A Tertiary tillite occurs at an altitude of 2750 m on Mount Feather in southern Victoria Land. The tillite mantles a remnant of the floor of a south-east-trending glacial valley that pre-dates the cutting of the existing glacial drainage system in southern Victoria Land. Petrographic evidence suggests that ice which deposited the tillite drained a relatively distant source area.

Strain gages set in the snow on an avalanche track recorded accelerating strain for four hours preceeding a naturally released avalanche. On a second occasion when the strain-rate was similar, the strain decelerated and no avalanche occured.