WHY ICE-AGE ICE IS SOMETIMES SOFT

Data on the mechanical properties, texture, fabric, and impurity content of ice deposited during the last glaciation are reviewed. The conclusions are: (1) Chloride and possibly sulphate ions, in concentrations high relative to those in Holocene ice, impede grain-boundary migration and grain growth so that the crystals remain small. (2) Such ice, in shear parallel to the ice-sheet bed, develops a strong, near-vertical, single-maximum fabric. (3) This fabric favours further deformation and this, in turn, further strengthens the fabric and keeps the crystals small. (4) This is why the strain rate in ice-age ice, in simple shear, is some 2.5 times that in Holocene ice at the same stress and temperature. (5) Ice-age ice under other stress systems, such as ice in roughly the upper 60% of the ice thickness, in bedrock hollows, at a stationary ice divide, in ice streams and in ice shelves, will not have enhanced flow. (6) An anisotropic flow relation must be used for detailed modelling of polar ice sheets.