A photo showing an ice-covered landscape with a large tower of ice in the centre and a human for scale
Fumarolic ice tower on Mount Erebus

A fumarolic ice tower is a tower of ice produced by fumaroles of volcanic activity in an environment whose ambient temperature is below the freezing point of water. They are often underlain by massive ice caves.

Mount Erebus, the world's southernmost active volcano, is one producer of these ice towers. The ambient temperature at its location is always well below water's freezing point, and the diffuse degassing of carbon dioxide through the steaming warm ground around its flanks causes ice to first melt, then vaporize, and then accumulate into chimney-like towers.[1]

Mount Berlin is another Antarctic volcanic mountain that produced such towers.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Wardell, L. J.; Kyle, P. R.; Campbell, A. R. (2003). "Carbon dioxide emissions from fumarolic ice towers, Mount Erebus volcano, Antarctica". In Oppenheimer, C.; Pyle, D. M.; Barclay, J. (eds.). Volcanic Degassing. Geological Society of London. p. 231. ISBN 978-1-86239-136-9.
  2. ↑ Walton, D. W. H. (28 March 2013). Antarctica: Global Science from a Frozen Continent. Cambridge University Press. p. 61. ISBN 978-1-107-00392-7.


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