GLACIAL ICE IN PERMAFROST
V. I. Solomatin
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Department of Geography,
119992, GSP-2, Moscow, Leninskie Gory, Russia
Keywords: Massive ice, buried glacier in cryolythozone, Arctic periglacial, Arctic glaciation and deglaciation, space-time structure of cryosphere
Pages: 78-84
Abstract
The massive ice was recognized as an individual genetic type of underground ice only in the middle 70s, but it took 10 years more to get evidence of the buried glacial nature of massive ice in cryolithozone. The massive ice body has an unconformable top contact with cover sediments, typical glaciodeformations and the flecks of various moraine material including boulders more than 1 meter diameter. Despite the huge dimensions of ice bodies they are not adequately represented in relief; both chemical and isotope-oxigen contents of the massive ice are comparable with the glacial ice content and differ strongly from other types of underground ice. The genetic identification of massive ice introduces serious corrections in a number of fundamental theses of cryolithogenesis. In this paper the conditions of deglaciation and conservation of glacial ice in frozen strata have been reconstructed based on the analysis of permafrost-glacial situation at the southern margine of the modern Arctic glaciation area.
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