Stratigraphic Studies of the Winter Snow Layer, Mount Logan, St. Elias Range

Abstract

A traverse of King Trench, which rises from Upper Ogilvie Glacier (2300 m) to King Col (4500 m) a distance of 16 km, Yukon Territory, was made for US Army CRREL, June 1965, to see if techniques of stratiographic analysis of snow and firn could be successfully applied to studies of the alpine climate, as they have been on the Greenland ice sheet, Data on near-surface snow accumulation, temperature and density from eight pits along the traverse provide a climatological model which relates the variations in snow properties to localized topographic obstruction or enhancement of katabatic air drainage. Limited conclusions suggest directions for future study rather than for application to other large ranges or even other parts of St.Elias Range: topography may be the most important control in determining the areal distribution of near-surface climatic elements in mountains; extrapolation of climatological parameters to mountain slopes from nearby valley stations or free-air soundings is not a valid approach: analysis of pertinent stratiographic parameters of the alpine snow pack may be a useful approach to study of local mountain climates.