IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v433y2005i7026d10.1038_nature03296.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fractures as the main pathways of water flow in temperate glaciers

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew G. Fountain

    (Portland State University)

  • Robert W. Jacobel

    (St Olaf College)

  • Robert Schlichting

    (Cleveland High School)

  • Peter Jansson

    (Stockholm University)

Abstract

Breaking the ice The behaviour of water in a glacier is a key factor in determining how the glacier moves, and how water is removed from it. The conventional view is that water flows through a glacier via natural tubular conduits, but new field work suggests it is time to reconsider. Video images from boreholes drilled into the Storglaciären, together with radar soundings, reveal a network of water-bearing fractures and, surprisingly, almost none of the expected conduits. This work provides a new perspective on the storage and routing of water in glaciers. The existence of fractures deep within glaciers may have relevance for the catastrophic collapse of ice shelves, like the recent collapse at Larsen-B. The cover shows Storglaciären, northern Sweden, with the peaks of Kebnekaise mountain in the background (Photo: Robert W. Jacobel).

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew G. Fountain & Robert W. Jacobel & Robert Schlichting & Peter Jansson, 2005. "Fractures as the main pathways of water flow in temperate glaciers," Nature, Nature, vol. 433(7026), pages 618-621, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:433:y:2005:i:7026:d:10.1038_nature03296
    DOI: 10.1038/nature03296
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03296
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/nature03296?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jing Wei & Laurent Fontaine & Nicolas Valiente & Peter Dörsch & Dag O. Hessen & Alexander Eiler, 2023. "Trajectories of freshwater microbial genomics and greenhouse gas saturation upon glacial retreat," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:433:y:2005:i:7026:d:10.1038_nature03296. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.