firn
Sign in to save__NOTOC__ thumb|right|Sampling the surface of a glacier. There is increasingly dense firn between surface snow and blue glacier ice. thumb|right|Firn field on the top of Säuleck, [[Hohe Tauern, in the Central Alps]] Firn (; from Swiss German "last year's", cognate with before) is partially compacted névé, a type of snow that has been left over from past seasons and has been recrystallized into a substance denser than névé. It is ice that is at an intermediate stage between snow and glacial ice. Firn has the appearance of wet sugar, but has a hardness that makes it extremely resistant to shovel
Article
5 sectionsContents
- List of firns
- Other uses
- References
- Sources
- External links
__NOTOC__ thumb|right|Sampling the surface of a glacier. There is increasingly dense firn between surface snow and blue glacier ice. thumb|right|Firn field on the top of Säuleck, [[Hohe Tauern, in the Central Alps]] Firn (; from Swiss German "last year's", cognate with before) is partially compacted névé, a type of snow that has been left over from past seasons and has been recrystallized into a substance denser than névé. It is ice that is at an intermediate stage between snow and glacial ice. Firn has the appearance of wet sugar, but has a hardness that makes it extremely resistant to shovelling. Its density generally ranges from 0.35 g/cm3 to 0.9 g/cm3, and it can often be found underneath the snow that accumulates at the head of a glacier.
Snowflakes are compressed under the weight of the overlying snowpack. Individual crystals near the melting point are semiliquid and slick, allowing them to glide along other crystal planes and fill in the spaces between them, increasing the ice's density. Where the crystals touch, they bond together, squeezing the air between them to the surface or into bubbles.