Flow of Blue Glacier, Olympic Mountains, Washington, U.S.A.

Abstract

Velocity and strain-rate patterns in a small temperate valley glacier display flow effects of channel geometry, ice thickness, surface slope, and ablation. Surface velocities of 20–55 m/year show year-to-year fluctuations of 1.5–3 m/year. Transverse profiles of velocity have the form of a higher-order parabola modified by the effects of flow around a broad bend in the channel, which makes the velocity profile asymmetric, with maximum velocity displaced toward the outside of the bend. Marginal sliding rates are 5–22 m/year against bedrock and nil against debris. Velocity vectors diverge from the glacier center-line near the terminus, in response to surface ice loss, but converge toward it near the firn line because of channel narrowing. Plunge of the vectors gives an emergence flow component that falls short of balancing ice loss by about 1 m/year. Center-line velocities vary systematically with ice thickness and surface slope. In the upper half of the reach studied, effects of changing thickness and slope tend to compensate, and velocities are nearly constant; in the lower half, the effects are cumulative and velocities decrease progressively down-stream. Where the slope increases down-stream from 7° to 9°, reflecting a bedrock step, there is localized longitudinal extension of 0.03 year^(–1) followed by compression of 0.08 year^(–1) where the slope decreases. Marginal shear (up to 0.5 year^(–1)) is strongly asymmetric due to flow around the bend: the stress center-line, where one of the principal axes becomes longitudinal, is displaced 150 m toward the inside of the bend. This effect is prominently visible in the crevasse pattern. Ice fluxes calculated independently by “laminar” flow theory and by continuity disagree in a way which shows that internal deformation of the ice is controlled not by local surface slope but by an effective slope that is nearly constant over the reach studied.