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A glacier cave is a
Most glacier caves are started by water running through or under the glacier. This water often originates on the glacier's surface through melting, entering the ice at a moulin and exiting at the glacier's snout at base level. Heat transfer from the water can cause sufficient melting to create an air-filled cavity, sometimes aided by
The Virtual Cave: Glacier Caves
{{Subterranea Caves Glaciology Glacial landforms
A glacier cave is a cave
A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...
formed within the ice
Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaq ...
of a glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such a ...
. Glacier caves are often called ice cave
An ice cave is any type of natural cave (most commonly lava tubes or limestone caves) that contains significant amounts of perennial (year-round) ice. At least a portion of the cave must have a temperature below 0 °C (32 °F) all ...
s, but the latter term is properly used to describe bedrock caves that contain year-round ice.
Overview
Most glacier caves are started by water running through or under the glacier. This water often originates on the glacier's surface through melting, entering the ice at a moulin and exiting at the glacier's snout at base level. Heat transfer from the water can cause sufficient melting to create an air-filled cavity, sometimes aided by solifluction
Solifluction is a collective name for gradual processes in which a mass moves down a slope (" mass wasting") related to freeze-thaw activity. This is the standard modern meaning of solifluction, which differs from the original meaning given to ...
. Air movement can then assist enlargement through melting in summer and sublimation
Sublimation or sublimate may refer to:
* ''Sublimation'' (album), by Canvas Solaris, 2004
* Sublimation (phase transition), directly from the solid to the gas phase
* Sublimation (psychology), a mature type of defense mechanism
* Sublimate of mer ...
in winter.
Some glacier caves are formed by geothermal heat from volcanic vents or hotsprings beneath the ice. An extreme example is the Kverkfjöll glacier cave in the Vatnajökull
Vatnajökull ( Icelandic pronunciation: , literally "Glacier of Lakes"; sometimes translated as Vatna Glacier in English) is the largest and most voluminous ice cap in Iceland, and the second largest in area in Europe after the Severny Island ...
glacier in Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...
, measured in the 1980s at long with a vertical range of .
Some glacier caves are relatively unstable due to melting and glacial motion, and are subject to localized or complete collapse, as well as elimination by glacial retreat
The retreat of glaciers since 1850 affects the availability of fresh water for irrigation and domestic use, mountain recreation, animals and plants that depend on glacier-melt, and, in the longer term, the level of the oceans. Deglaciation occur ...
. An example of the dynamic nature of glacier caves is the former Paradise Ice Caves, located on Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier (), indigenously known as Tahoma, Tacoma, Tacobet, or təqʷubəʔ, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With a ...
in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
. Known since the early 1900s, the caves were thought to have disappeared altogether in the mid-1940s, yet in 1978 cavers measured of passageways in glacier caves there, and it was then considered the longest glacier cave system in the world. The Paradise Ice Caves collapsed and vanished in the 1990s, and the lower lobe of the glacier which once contained the caves has also vanished entirely between 2004 and 2006.
Glacier caves may be used by glaciologists to gain access to the interior of glaciers. The study of glacier caves themselves is sometimes called "glaciospeleology".
Examples
*Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier (), indigenously known as Tahoma, Tacoma, Tacobet, or təqʷubəʔ, is a large active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, located in Mount Rainier National Park about south-southeast of Seattle. With a ...
(Washington, USA) Two craters on top of a cone on the volcano's summit contain the world's largest volcanic ice-cave system.
*Perito Moreno Glacier
The Perito Moreno Glacier () is a glacier located in Los Glaciares National Park in southwest Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. It is one of the most important tourist attractions in the Argentine Patagonia.
The ice formation, in length, is ...
(Argentina)
* Titlis (Switzerland)
See also
*Further reading
* W. R. Halliday, ''Glaciospeleology'' Cave Science Topics, Caving International no. 4, July 1979. * J.Schroeder, ''Inside the Glaciers – Svalbard, Norway '' The Canadian Caver vol.22 no.1, 1990.References
External links
The Virtual Cave: Glacier Caves
{{Subterranea Caves Glaciology Glacial landforms