wholly crap, i did my undergrad senior thesis on these things...called ice pedestals/ice hoodoos.
the rock shelters the underlying ice from melting at the same rate as the surrounding exposed ice. it melts slower and strand the rock on the pedestal. the rock slides off it and it repeats. there's more to it than that but i won't bore you to death unless you want me to. this is one of the processes that control how debris moves across the surface of a glacier. neat stuff.
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Date: 2008-05-02 04:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-02 08:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-03 04:59 am (UTC)the rock shelters the underlying ice from melting at the same rate as the surrounding exposed ice. it melts slower and strand the rock on the pedestal. the rock slides off it and it repeats. there's more to it than that but i won't bore you to death unless you want me to. this is one of the processes that control how debris moves across the surface of a glacier. neat stuff.