ICE 101 - Cryosphere Analysis

Course Description: This is an upper level graduate and post doctoral level course (Mani and Scott being the only graduates and others being far more advanced), intended to give an idea of the various aspects of sea ice. In this course you will be given hands-on description of various kinds of ice and also have a chance to visit locations with different deformations. The lab section would be held in tandem with the lecture class. As part of the lab section, you would have a chance to play around on the ridges, drive the ski-doo and sit on a sled and go bumpity-bump-bump. BE SURE TO DRESS WARM!!!
Instructor: Jackie Richter-Menge
Co-Instructor: Bruce Elder
Class Hours: 8:30 am - 11:30 am, April 10th, 2007
Location: On the ice camp (within a 2 km radius)
Office Hours: Maybe at CRREL, Hannover, but only by appointment...
Textbook: Through word of mouth, so be sure to take notes since these things will not be repeated
Lecture 1: (Personal notes, I am not taking any chance when it comes to the final exam!!!) The first class covered the different types of ice. The first year ice which had a more flattened structure and the multi year ice which was composed of an undulating surface. The landing strip was located on the first year ice for that specific reason. When an ice splits apart and drifts, it is a lead. When ice crashes into each other create ridges. There are two specific types of ridges 1) Compression ridge 2) Shearing ridge. The Compression ridge is created when the floes there is head on collision while the latter is due to floes scraping each other in opposite directions. Typically there is a lot of structure when it comes to shearing ridge while compression ridge ends up in a big pile of cauliflower kind of structures.
Lecture 2: From the ridge area, we went down to a shearing ridge for the labs :-) where we observed stalactites of brine which had gotten frozen as they tricked through the ice. One of things that you notice is the interspersed leads and ridges located all over the lab area. In many cases, leads drive right into a ridge dissipating their energy and you will notice a brand new lead taking of in a totally different direction from the ridge. Lecture 3: The visit to the Diving hut, for which i shall have to devote a blog altogether!!!