Experiment provides insight into ice avalanche behaviour

In September 2002, one hundred million cubic metres of rock and ice separated from the northern slope of the Kazbek massif in North Ossetia, Russia. The resulting avalanche killed 125 people and caused widespread damage.

According to Nottingham University, ice avalanches can travel great distances at speeds of up to 150 miles per hour, but it is not fully understood how they travel so far or so fast.

The difficulty is said to lie in observing the processes within avalanches closely. By creating a laboratory avalanche one researcher at Nottingham University has helped further the understanding of how melting effects flows of ice, even at temperatures below freezing.

Dr Barbara Turnbull, a member of the Fluid and Particle Processes Group at the university’s Faculty of Engineering, has found that the same layer of liquid water at an ice particle’s surface that helps skaters to skate across an ice rink also enhances ice avalanche speeds.