till beneath ice stream b 4 a coupled ice till flow model a nonsteady model of an ice stream flowing on deforming till shows that the system responds rapidly and in a stable manner to reasonable marginal perturbations for the model we require one dimensional flow and continuity of ice and till and we assume linear viscous till rheology and balance between the driving stress for ice flow and the resistive stress at the bed this allows us to write coupled equations for the time rate of change of the ice thickness and the till thickness in terms of these thicknesses and the till viscosity an analytic steady state solution for ice stream b west antarctica shows that till viscosity decreases slowly downstream probably in response to decreasing effective pressure downstream nonsteady numerical experiments with fixed ice thicknesses at the ends show that a marginal perturbation causes a wave of adjustment to travel the length of the ice stream in about 50 years with a new steady state in about 200 years changes in till thickness tend to moderate perturbations in the ice and thus stabilize the system

thermal effects on the location of ice stream margins west antarctic ice streams move rapidly over beds that are thawed by heat generated by the motion intervening zones of slow moving ice are probably freezing at their bases where heat generation is absent heat is also generated in the shear zone between the slow and fast moving ice through modeling of coupled heat and mass flow we show that the position of the boundary between freezing and melting at the bed is unstable for an otherwise morphologically uniform bed above a threshold speed in the ice stream heat generation in the shear zone allows melting beneath the slow ice and possible widening of the stream below this threshold heat generation at the edge of the thawed zone is insufficient to maintain melting leading to freezing and narrowing of the stream the threshold speed appears to be a function of the temperature at the base of slow ice relative to the melting point and is also highly sensitive to the inflow of colder ice from the slow zone for environmental conditions typical of west antarctica the threshold speed is about 100 m yr 1 in the absence of inflow and increases to typical ice stream speeds 500 m yr 1 for inflow speeds of a few meters per year thus the ice streams can be in a delicate thermal balance with the potential of melting outward or freezing inward rapidly moving ice streams could expand unless blocked by bed properties that would prevent fast motion even when there is melting at the bed

shear margins in glaciers and ice sheets analytical and numerical techniques are used to examine the flow response of a sloped slab of power law fluid power n subjected to basal boundary conditions that vary spatially across the flow direction as for example near an ice stream margin with planar basal topography the primary assumption is that basal shear stress is proportional to the basal speed time a spatially variable slip resistance the ratio of mean basal speed to the speed originating from shearing through the thickness denoted as r gives a measure of how slippery the bed is the principal conclusion is that a localized disturbance in slip resistance affects the basal stress and speed in a zone spread over a greater width of the flow in units of ice thickness h the spatial scale of spreading is proportional to a single dimensionless number r n r n 1 1 n 1 derived from n and r the consequence for a shear zone above a sharp jump in slip resistance is that the shearing is spread out over a boundary layer with a width proportional to r n for an ice stream caused by a band of low slip resistance with a half width of wh the margins influence velocity and stress in the central part of the band depending on r n in comparison to w three regimes can be identified which for n 3 are quantified as follows low r defined as r 3 1w for which the boundary layers from both sides bridge across the full flow width and the driving stress in the center is supported almost entirely by side drag intermediate r for which the driving stress in the center is supported by a combination of basal and side drag shear zones that are narrower than predicted on the basis of this theory r 3 would require localized softening of the ice to explain the concentration of deformation at a shorter scale

origin of the middle pleistocene transition by ice sheet erosion of regolith the transition in the middle pleistocene 0 9 ma seen in 18o deep sea core records from relatively low amplitude high frequency 41 kyr to high amplitude low frequency 100 kyr ice volume variations under essentially the same orbital forcing can be attributed to a change from an all soft bedded to a mixed hard soft bedded laurentide ice sheet through glacial erosion of a thick regolith and resulting exposure of unweathered crystalline bedrock a one dimensional ice sheet and bedrock model which includes transport of sediment and ice by subglacial sediment deformation demonstrates that a widespread deforming sediment layer maintains thin ice sheets before the transition which respond linearly to the dominant 23 and 41 kyr orbital forcing progressive removal of the sediment layer eventually causes a transition to thicker ice sheets whose dominant timescale of change 100 kyr reflects nonlinear deglaciation processes in model simulations over the last 3 ma initialized with no ice and a uniform 50 m sediment layer the time series of ice volume and extent agree in several important aspects with the observed records

palaeo ice streams in the northern keewatin sector of the laurentide ice sheet evidence for ice streams in the laurentide ice sheet is widespread in the region of northern keewatin and the boothia peninsula nunavut canada palaeo ice streams have been recognized but their location size and potential role in ice sheet dynamics are poorly constrained based on the interpretation of satellite imagery we produce a palaeo ice stream map of this region glacial directional landforms eskers and moraines were mapped and integrated into landform assemblages using a glacial geological inversion model palaeo frozen bed areas were also identified relative age of the geomorphic swarms was assessed by cross cutting relationships and radiocarbon ages where available using this information we obtained a glaciologically plausible picture of ice stream evolution within the northernmost laurentide ice sheet on the m clintock channel corridor three generations of pure ice streams are found on baffin island and the gulf of boothia glaciation was dominated by frozen bed zones located on high plateaus and ice streams running along the troughs i e topographic ice streams a massive convergent pattern at the head of committee bay drained ice from both the keewatin and foxe sectors and was probably one of the main deglaciation channels of the laurentide ice sheet finally our results indicate that streaming flow was present in the deep interior of the laurentide ice sheet as recently shown for the greenland and antarctic ice sheets

evidence for a recently abandoned shear margin adjacent to ice stream b2 antarctica from ice penetrating radar measurements satellite imagery of the area between ice streams b1 and b2 antarctica shows a lineation on the surface of the ice sheet of uncertain origin ice motion in the area 2 m yr 1 is 2 orders of magnitude slower than that of the surrounding streams and shows no significant variation that could explain the feature a low power high resolution radar system was used to image the upper 80 m of the ice sheet between the two ice streams the survey shows that the lineation is associated with what is likely an abandoned shear margin the radar data show that a set of chaotic diffractors lies buried beneath two thirds of the area while the remaining one third is undisturbed to 80 m depth the chaotic ice ends abruptly along a boundary that is parallel to but offset 2 5 km from the surface lineation also isolated linear diffractors are commonly observed in the otherwise undisturbed ice immediately adjacent to the boundary the depth location orientation and curved form of the diffractors strongly suggest they are the tops of crevasses that were active at the time the chaotic ice was being strained and that they were formed by left lateral shear this is the same sense of shear that is presently active in the b2 margin 6 km away the depth to the chaotic diffractors suggests that the shear margin abandoned its prior position 190 years b p the burial depth decreases toward the b2 margin and suggests a migration rate of 100 m yr 1 in addition a separate high power radar system was used to image the entire thickness of the ice sheet 1 km in the same area these data show numerous linear diffractors near the base of the ice sheet it is very likely that at least some of these diffractors are entrained morainal debris others may be bottom crevasses or zones of wet reflective ice that developed in the high strain environment of the now abandoned shear margin

measurement of temperature in a margin of ice stream b antarctica implications for margin migration and lateral drag ice temperature was measured in and around the chaotically crevassed south margin of ice stream b antarctica from 1992 to 1994 the temperatures at 30 m depth in the chaotic zone are about 12 k lower than in the adjacent uncrevassed ice due to the ponding of cold winter air at depths greater than 150 m there is clear evidence of internal heating of the ice due to the large shear deformation rate in the marginal zone analysis of the depth of cooling below the crevasses and of the internal heating gives two pieces of information first over the last half century the lateral shear stress averaged 2 0 x 10 5 pa in the top third of the margin and second the margin moved outward at an average rate of 7 3 m a these values do not involve any assumptions about the flow law of ice the uncertainties are roughly 20 the value of lateral shear stress indicates that the most of the drag on the ice stream is along its sides

the marginal shear stress of ice stream b west antarctica to ascertain whether the velocity of ice stream b west antarctica may be controlled by the stress in its marginal shear zones the snake and the dragon we undertook a determination of the marginal shear stress in the dragon near camp up b by using ice itself as a stress meter the observed marginal shear strain rate of 0 14 a 1 is used to calculate the marginal shear stress from the flow law of ice determined by creep tests on ice cores from a depth of 300 m in the dragon obtained by using a hot water ice coring drill the test specimen orientation relative to the stress axes in the tests is chosen on the basis of c axis fabrics so that the test applies horizontal shear across vertical planes parallel to the margin the resulting marginal shear stress is 2 2 0 3 10 5 pa this implies that 63 100 of the ice stream s support against gravitational loading comes from the margins and only 37 0 from the base so that the margins play an important role in controlling the ice stream motion the marginal shear stress value is twice that given by the ice stream model of echelmeyer and others 1994 and the corresponding strain rate enhancement factors differ greatly e 1 2 vs 10 12 5 this large discrepancy could be explained by recrystallization of the ice during or shortly after coring estimates of the expected recrystallization time scale bracket the 1 h time scale of coring and leave the likelihood of recrystallization uncertain however the observed two maximum fabric type is not what is expected for annealing recrystallization from the sharp single maximum fabric that would be expected in situ at the high shear strains involved 20 experimental data from wilson 1982 suggest that if the core did recrystallize the prior fabric was a two maximum fabric not substantially different from the observed one which implies that the measured flow law and derived marginal shear stress are applicable to the in situ situation these issues need to be resolved by further work to obtain a more definitive observational assessment of the marginal shear stress

contrasting plate tectonic styles of the qinling dabie sulu and franciscan metamorphic belts the dabie mountains are part of the 2000 km long qinling dabie sulu suture zone juxtaposing the sino korean and yangtze cratons an eastern extension apparently crosses korea and lies along the japan sea side of honshu as the imjingang and sangun terranes respectively a northeastern segment may be present in sikhote alin russian far east this orogenic belt records late paleozoic ocean floor consumption and the triassic collision of two precambrian continental massifs in east central china coesite and microdiamond inclusions in strong refractory minerals of eclogite facies ultrahigh pressure uhp metamorphic rocks in the dabie sulu area attest to profound subduction of a leading salient of the old cold yangtze craton now recovered through tectonic exhumation and erosion northward increase in intensity of subsolidus recrystallization of the suture complex is analogous to the internal progression in grade of high pressure hp and uhp metamorphism documented in the western alps in both regions subduction of narrow prongs of continental material uhp metamorphism and return toward midcrustal levels of relatively lower density buoyant microcontinental blocks resulted from delamination of these rocks from the descending higher density oceanic crust capped lithospheric plate such salients of continental crust represent an integral structural part of the downgoing slab remain intact and may be dragged to great depths before disengaging and rising differentially as coherent blocks uhp parageneses include trace mineralogic relics requiring peak metamorphic conditions of 700 900 c and 28 35 kbar or more in contrast pacific type hp metamorphic belts as represented by the franciscan complex of western california recrystallized under physical conditions up to 200 500 c 10 3 kbar in this setting voluminous quartzo feldspathic and graywacke debris was carried downward on oceanic crust capped lithosphere choking the subduction zone with incompetent material sited between both plates and strongly adhering to neither this buoyant largely sedimentary complex decoupled at 25 30 km depth and ascended toward the surface in both alpine type intracontinental collision and pacific type underflow light sialic material displaced dense mantle thus the return to midcrustal levels was propelled dominantly by body forces

tributaries of west antarctic ice streams revealed by radarsat interferometry interferometric radarsat data are used to map ice motion in the source areas of four west antarctic ice streams the data reveal that tributaries coincident with subglacial valleys provide a spatially extensive transition between slow inland flow and rapid ice stream flow and that adjacent ice streams draw from shared source regions two tributaries flow into the stagnant ice stream c creating an extensive region that is thickening at an average rate of 0 49 meters per year this is one of the largest rates of thickening ever reported in antarctica

numerical modeling of subglacial sediment deformation implications for the behavior of the lake michigan lobe laurentide ice sheet we apply a numerical model of the late wisconsin circa 20 000 years b p lake michigan lobe lml laurentide ice sheet to investigate how fine grained subglacial sediment might influence lobe behavior particularly rapid millennial scale marginal oscillations observed in the geologic record over the canadian shield we assume a rigid bed hard bedded basal boundary condition in areas overlain by fine grained sediment soft bedded the base of the ice is coupled to a deformable sediment layer using a rate dependent stress strain law geotechnical tests of clay rich till deposited by the lml provide control for sediment rheologic parameters simulated cross sectional profiles are consistent with reconstructions from geologic evidence time dependent simulations suggest that a soft bedded lobe could have reached steady state in about 20 000 years or less in contrast to 50 000 to 60 000 years for an otherwise identical hard bedded lobe a soft bedded lobe with sediment viscosity at the experimentally determined value is about twice as responsive to millennial scale shifts in accumulation or ablation as a nonsliding hard bedded lobe but in both cases the response is slower than that indicated by the geologic record results suggest that while strong millennial scale changes in accumulation and ablation can produce responses in hard bedded or soft bedded ice that are consistent with the geologic record changes in subglacial sediment viscosity even relatively modest changes whether independent or in conjunction with climate change might more readily account for millennial and submillennial scale fluctuations of the lobe margin these observations do not exclude a role for sliding but they do provide some perspective from which to evaluate relative contributions of the various processes that influence lobe behavior

bed reflectivity beneath inactive ice streams in west antarctica radio echo sounding res techniques are used to examine spatial changes inbed reflectivityacrossrelictice streams inwest antarctica measurementsfrom adjacent interstream ridgesare usedto correctthe measuredpower returned fromthebed for attenuation and losses due to geometric spreading scattering and absorption res measurements near boreholes drilled on ice stream c isc indicate high coefficients of bed reflectivity r40 1 in locations where the bed wasthawed and boreholes connected to thebasalwatersystem andlow reflectivitycoefficients r50 02 atlocationsthat were frozen and not connected intermediate values of bed reflectivity were measured at locations where the connection to the basal water systemwas weak measurements across four relictmargins show thatbedreflectivity usuallyjumpsfromlow tohighvaluesseveral kilometers inside the outermost buried crevasses we interpret this to be a transition from frozento thawedbasal conditions anddiscuss implications of these observations

formation mechanisms for ice stream lateral shear margin moraines the lateral shear margins of palaeo ice stream beds are occasionally marked by large curvilinear moraines but little work has addressed how they might form in this paper we review the characteristics of lateral shear margin moraines and present two quantitative models for their formation i differential erosion rates related to lateral variations in the stream velocity and ii lateral incursion from inter stream ridges after the thinner stream retreats where the shear margin moraine is consequently just a terminal moraine of the inter stream ridge other possible mechanisms of formation are addressed qualitatively both of our quantitative theories are in principle feasible but the incursion model is less plausible and inconsistent with observations the differential erosion model can predict moraines tens of metres thick and several kilometres wide which can be formed in a thousand years the width of the moraine depends on the competition between a term that varies across the ice stream because it is dependent on ice velocity and that always causes erosion and a term related to the local accumulation rate which causes erosion if is positive and deposition if negative these terms combine to create the possibility of deposition at the shear margins of ice streams in ablation areas the width of the moraine has a tendency to increase with the width of the stream the conditions that permit shear margin moraines to form are quite constrained too much ablation and deposition occurs everywhere rather than just near the lateral margins of the ice streams too little ablation and there is erosion everywhere this is consistent with the infrequent observations of lateral shear margin moraines

the stability of a viscous till sheet coupled with ice flow considered at wavelengths less than the ice thickness a turbation method is used to analyse the stability of a thin till layer overlain by a deep ice layer ice is modelled as a linearly viscous fluid while the till viscosity has power law dependence on stress and effective pressure a linearized set of equations yields descriptions of the coupling of the ice flow with the sediment flow and reveals parameter ranges where the till perturbation amplitude can grow this shect flow instability is an essential part of any theory of drumlin formation and shows that viscous models of till have the ability to explain typical deforming bed features this is of great significance for large scale ice shect modelling

the role of lateral drag in the dynamics of ice stream b antarctica the partitioning of resistive force between the bed and sides of ice stream b antarctica is obtained for three large areas that have been measured using repeat aerial photogrammetry problems associated with data errors and local variations in ice strength and velocity are reduced by considering the areally averaged budget of forces for each photo block results indicate that the bed under ice stream b must be very weak and unable to provide muche resistance mechanical control on this ice stream emanates almost entirely from the lateral margins