Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Alaska
Bathymetry
(m)
200
500
2500
4000
5000
Northwest passage
Northeast passage
Northern Sea Route
North Magnetic
North Geographic
Canada
Pole
Russia
Pole
I
celand
Figure 1.7
Expected ice‐free Northeast and Northwest Passages that connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The outer boundary of the map is 50° latitude. The location of the north magnetic pole is as of 2008 (the average
location moves in loops at around 40 km/year).
to open and link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans:
The Northwest Passage (NWP) and Northeast Passage
(NEP). The latter encompasses the Russian Northern Sea
Route (NSR). Figure 1.7 displays the two routes overlaid
on a bathymetry map of the Arctic Ocean and surround-
ing seas. The NWP encompasses a few routes that pass
through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago region. The
Archipelago has always been a major impediment to fully
opening the NWP. The NEP, on the other hand, is a set of
marine routes that run along the coast of Siberia, making
use of a few straits through the islands of the Russian
Arctic. Sea ice will continue to be monitored in the future
to spot any long‐lasting opening of the routes.
crystals. Geophysicists and materials scientists are inter-
ested in ice mainly because it is transparent or translucent
and commonly occurs as a polycrystalline solid, similar to
crystalline minerals that exist in nature, common metals,
and alloys and ceramics. There is a vast literature on the
physics and chemistry of water and ice. Probably the most
comprehensive topic on the early and fundamental studies
on this topic was compiled by the physicist,
Dorsey
[1968]
originally published in 1940 as part of the Monograph
Series of the American Chemical Society. Since then, a
number of topics have been written on the physics and
mechanics of ice. A comprehensive review of crystalline
structure of lake and river ice is given in
Pounder
[1965],
Hobbs
[1974], and
Michel
[1978]. The information base for
sea ice is very broad and rather scattered. It can be found,
for example, in
Pounder
[1965],
Weeks and Ackley
[1982],
Weeks
[2010], and
Petrich and Eicken
[2009]. Journals
devoted to ice include
Journal of Glaciology
published by
the International Glaciological Society (IGS),
Cold
Regions Science and Technology
(CRST), and to some
1.4.2. Sea Ice in Physics
While large single crystals of pure ice can be found in
low‐temperate glaciers or can be prepared in cold labora-
tories, the usual icy objects found in nature or fabricated
for human consumption consist of aggregate of many
