ST. PETERSBURG, April 4. /TASS/. Specialists of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) used geo-radiolocation to create a unique 3D image of the ice core structure of the largest hydrolaccolite, discovered in the Rheindalen inter-mountain valley on the Spitsbergen archipelago, the institute's press service told reporters.
"The Rheindalen hydrolaccoliths have a specific feature - craters on tops of peaks. They are formed due to summer thawing of soils that affected tips of those hydrolaccoliths' ice cores. The ice thaws and then settles forming craters on the peaks, and then those craters are taken by thermokarst lakes. There are only a few dozen of thousands of hydrolaccoliths on this planet, but only on a few of them the ice core is close enough to the surface, like in Rheindalen, and thus by using geo-radiolocation we could determine its geometry and formation conditions. Our methods and permafrost monitoring on Spitsbergen further on are used in Russia's cryolithozone," the press service quoted the institute's researcher Nikita Demidov as saying.
Hydrolaccoliths are a mass of subsurface ice. They are similar in shape to laccoliths (an intrusive mushroom-shaped body - TASS). They are formed in the cryolithozone, in territories where permafrost's upper layer is close to the surface. The find in the Rheindalen Valley is 40 meters high-scientists believe a coal seam has "lifted" the hydrolaccolite from a depth of 75 meters. On one hydrolaccolith, a growing ice body literally has torn apart a layer of rocky soils to bring coal from the depths up to the surface. The scientists traveled 80 km on snowmobiles to study the giant hydrolaccoliths in Rheindalen.
AARI is the world's leading scientific center to study the Earth's polar areas. The institute carries out the entire cycle of work in high latitudes in the interests of the Russian Federation and businesses. The institute's departments are engaged in fundamental and applied research on climate, processes in the atmosphere, near space, marine environment and ice cover. AARI is a state operator for activities in the Arctic.