physics update These items, with supplementary material, first appeared at http://www.physicstoday.org. revasses may make ice shelves more stable. In Antarctica and elsewhere, ice sheets and glaciers flow down toward the coastlines and continue out into the ocean, where they form thick, floating ice shelves like the one sketched here. Such shelves eventually break, through calving or large-scale collapse. Crevasses on ice shelves are thought to contribute to those processes, but studies of their contributions have mostly focused on the stresses and dynamics near a single crevasse. New theoretical work by Wendy Zhang, Douglas MacAyeal, and colleagues at the University of Chicago considers multiple crevasses and shows that collectively they can add mechanical resilience to ice shelves. In a crevasse-free ice shelf, disturbances from ocean waves, tides, and storms will spread through, and flex, the entire shelf. But as the researchers demonstrate, a periodic arrangement of crevasses forms a bandgap. Like bandgaps in numerous other systemsâincluding photonic crystals, semiconductors, and even underwater sandbarsâthe crevasse-induced bandgap blocks excitations in a certain range of frequencies from propagating through the ice shelf; instead, the flexing is confined to a small region near the shelf edge. The team finds that the bandgap persists
Crevasses may make ice shelves more stable
Abstract
physics update These items, with supplementary material, first appeared at http://www.physicstoday.org. revasses may make ice shelves more stable. In Antarctica and elsewhere, ice sheets and glaciers flow down toward the coastlines and continue out into the ocean, where they form thick, floating ice shelves like the one sketched here. Such shelves eventually break, through calving or large-scale collapse. Crevasses on ice shelves are thought to contribute to those processes, but studies of...End of preview. The entire article is 1 page. To view the full-text, please rent this article to continue.
/lp/american-institute-of-physics/crevasses-may-make-ice-shelves-more-stable-XhV5lknvSi
Welcome to DeepDyve! Rent Premier Research Articles and Save Up to 90%
Crevasses may make ice shelves more stable
Fitzgerald, Richard J.
Follow Physics Today
, Volume 65 (2)
American Institute of Physics – Feb 1, 2012
More Info
More Like This Article
View All dataSource[]=actageo&dataSource[]=aspet&dataSource[]=aaos&dataSource[]=aacc&dataSource[]=aacr&dataSource[]=aea&dataSource[]=aip&dataSource[]=ajnr&dataSource[]=ams&dataSource[]=aps_physical&dataSource[]=appi_book&dataSource[]=appi_journal&dataSource[]=apha&dataSource[]=asip&dataSource[]=asm&dataSource[]=asn&dataSource[]=aspb&dataSource[]=avs&dataSource[]=annual_reviews&dataSource[]=arxiv&dataSource[]=acm&dataSource[]=berghahn&dataSource[]=cabi&dataSource[]=clinical_trials&dataSource[]=dailymed&dataSource[]=degruyter&dataSource[]=du_press&dataSource[]=esa&dataSource[]=eu_press&dataSource[]=elsevier&dataSource[]=emerald&dataSource[]=ejtr&dataSource[]=emea&dataSource[]=epo&dataSource[]=faseb&dataSource[]=gsa&dataSource[]=health_affairs&dataSource[]=hindawi&dataSource[]=imanager&dataSource[]=imedpub&dataSource[]=informa_healthcare&dataSource[]=informs&dataSource[]=iop&dataSource[]=iucr&dataSource[]=iospress&dataSource[]=jbjs&dataSource[]=leftcoast&dataSource[]=lu_press&dataSource[]=mesharpe&dataSource[]=mary_ann_liebert&dataSource[]=medline&dataSource[]=mit_press&dataSource[]=nature&dataSource[]=oxford&dataSource[]=pier_professional&dataSource[]=pnas&dataSource[]=portlandpress&dataSource[]=psyc_articles&dataSource[]=psyc_books&dataSource[]=psyc_critiques&dataSource[]=plos_journal&dataSource[]=pubmed_central&dataSource[]=rsna&dataSource[]=rockefeller&dataSource[]=rcn&dataSource[]=ria&dataSource[]=rsc&dataSource[]=sage&dataSource[]=spie&dataSource[]=springer_journal&dataSource[]=springer&dataSource[]=taylor_francis&dataSource[]=aps&dataSource[]=the_scientist&dataSource[]=uc_press&dataSource[]=uspto_abstract&dataSource[]=wiley&dataSource[]=pct
© 2012 DeepDyve, Inc. All rights reserved.
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy
