Prediction of ice sheet fractures

2009/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Hidrologia
• Ozeanografia

How do you know if the cup that is dropped below the table is broken or if it bounces off the ground? It is not easy to answer this question, in general, problems of fracture mechanics are very difficult. And that was what happened to those who wanted to know how icebergs were formed, that is, they could not understand that the ice platforms were cracking and that the pieces of ice that we call iceberg are released.

A team from the State University of Pennsylvania, along with collaborators from five other institutions, has managed to solve this headache. It was suspected that the tendency to disperse ice platforms greatly influences cracks and their suspicion has been confirmed. They have invented a formula to predict cracks.

Analyzed the previously published data and those collected by them, it is observed that the proposed hypothesis is correct. As an example, it has been said that a narrow platform of ice trapped between the two ridges can hardly be swept away and therefore suffers less cracks.