Ice Avalanches

Snow Avalanches, Ice Avalanches and Glacier Surges

Scaling laws for melting ice avalanches.

This Letter describes an investigation of interfacial melting in ice-bearing granular flows. It is proposed that energy associated with granular collisions causes melting at an ice particle's surface, which can thus occur at temperatures well below freezing. A laboratory experiment has been designed that allows quantification of this process and its effect on the dynamics of a granular shear fl...

On the predictability of ice avalanches

The velocity of unstable large ice masses from hanging glaciers increases as a power-law function of time prior to failure. This characteristic acceleration presents a finite-time singularity at the theoretical time of failure and can be used to forecast the time of glacier collapse. However, the non-linearity of the power-law function makes the prediction difficult. The effects of the non-line...

http://www.glaciology.ethz.ch ICEQUAKES AS PRECURSORS OF ICE AVALANCHES

A hanging glacier at the east face of Weisshorn broke off in 2005. We were able to monitor and measure surface motion and icequake activity for 21 days up to three days prior to the break-off. Results are presented from the analysis of seismic waves generated by the glacier during the rupture maturation process. Three types of precursory signals of the imminent catastrophic rupture were identif...

Monitoring and modeling ice-rock avalanches from ice-capped volcanoes: A case study of frequent large avalanches on Iliamna Volcano, Alaska

Iliamna is an andesitic stratovolcano of the Aleutian arc with regular gas and steam emissions and mantled by several large glaciers. Iliamna Volcano exhibits an unusual combination of frequent and large ice-rock avalanches in the order of 1×10 m to 3×10 m with recent return periods of 2–4 years. We have reconstructed an avalanche event record for the past 45 years that indicates Iliamna avalan...