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Use of the term “glacier cave”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2017

Garry D. McKenzie*
Affiliation:
Institute of Polar Studies, Ohio State University, 125 South Oval Drive, Columbus, Ohio 43210, U.S.A.
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Abstract

Type
Correspondence
Copyright
Copyright © International Glaciological Society 1969

Sir,

A glacier cave is defined by speleologists as a cave formed within or at the base of a glacier (Reference HallidayHalliday, 1966). When glaciologists and others refer to such caves they often use the term “ice cave”. However, in popular and scientific usage ice caves are “… permanent caves in rock formations, in which ice forms and remains far into the summer or throughout the year” (Reference HendersonHenderson, 1933). This is now accepted practice in the field of speleology, and it would avoid confusion if the term ice cave were no longer used to refer to caves in glaciers or other bodies of ice.

29 April 1969

References

Halliday, W. R. 1966. Depths of the earth—caves and cavers of the United States. New York, Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Henderson, J. 1933. Caverns, ice caves, sinkholes, and natural bridges, II. University of Colorado Studies, Vol. 20, Nos. 2–3, p. 11518.Google Scholar