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Firn

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Full-Text Articles in Glaciology

Microstructural Evolution Of Fine-Grained Layers Through The Firn Column At Summit, Greenland, R. Lomonaco, M. Albert, I. Baker Jan 2011

Microstructural Evolution Of Fine-Grained Layers Through The Firn Column At Summit, Greenland, R. Lomonaco, M. Albert, I. Baker

Dartmouth Scholarship

We present a microstructural characterization of fine-grained layers from the top 90 m of firn from Summit, Greenland, performed using a combination of scanning electron microscopy techniques including secondary electron imaging, energy-dispersive spectroscopy and electron backscattered patterns, and X-ray microcomputed tomography. The impurities in the firn, both soluble impurities and dust particles, were found largely in the grain interiors. Both c- and a-axis pole figures do not show strong evidence of a preferred orientation of the grains even at the bottom of the firn column. The firn structure became increasingly anisotropic with vertical alignment in the top 3 m, probably …


Ice Layers As An Indicator Of Summer Warmth And Atmospheric Blocking In Alaska, Eric P. Kelsey, Cameron P. Wake, Karl Kreutz, Erich Osterberg Jun 2010

Ice Layers As An Indicator Of Summer Warmth And Atmospheric Blocking In Alaska, Eric P. Kelsey, Cameron P. Wake, Karl Kreutz, Erich Osterberg

Dartmouth Scholarship

No abstract provided.


A New Technique For Firn Grain-Size Measurement Using Sem Image Analysis, N.E. Spaulding, D.A. Meese, I. Baker, P.A. Mayewski Jan 2010

A New Technique For Firn Grain-Size Measurement Using Sem Image Analysis, N.E. Spaulding, D.A. Meese, I. Baker, P.A. Mayewski

Dartmouth Scholarship

Firn microstructure is accurately characterized using images obtained from scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Visibly etched grain boundaries within images are used to create a skeleton outline of the microstructure. A pixel-counting utility is applied to the outline to determine grain area. Firn grain sizes calculated using the technique described here are compared to those calculated using the techniques of Gow (1969) and Gay and Weiss (1999) on samples of the same material, and are found to be substantially smaller. The differences in grain size between the techniques are attributed to sampling deficiencies (e.g. the inclusion of pore filler in the …