CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Fahnestock, M.
Date : 2003.
Title : Glacial flow goes seismic.
Publication : Science
Issue : 302(5645):
Page(s) : 578-579.
Abstract
The notion of a large ice sheet is familiar to many through descriptions of the vast expanses of ice that once covered much of Canada, the northern United States and Scandinavia. It usually evokes a picture of a slowly spreading mass that is nearly inert and rests firmly on the ground beneath. Yet glaciologists tend to see the remaining large ice masses in Greenland and Antarctica as dynamic objects are capable of relatively rapid changes in discharge at outlet glaciers near the ice edge. The time scales for change range from ongoing responses to the end of the last ice age to changing ice discharge in ice streams to glacier surges that can last from a few years to a few weeks or days. Any short-term fluctuations of ice speed must involve changes in rates of sliding over the glacier bed. Large glaciers are known to change speed in response to external forcing, such as water input from melting and ocean tides for glaciers that end in the sea.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology