TheSnowpit.com News Blog

As a break from avalanche accidents, I hope you enjoy these two interesting uses of snow and ice in science.

First, Science Daily has a piece on how Inuit trails document not only their travels, but their social networks, their adventures in conjunction with the weather conditions, and some of their cultural identity. From the article:

Using a combination of historical documents, ethnographic research, geographic tools including GPS, GIS and Google Earth, as well as a recent journey following Inuit along a traditional trail, Dr. Aporta shows the geographic extent of the Inuit’s sophisticated network of routes....

The article continues, saying that the routes are not documented on any map, but rather are shared through stories and other oral methods which also include the actual experience of traveling.

Next, Slashdot gave a short intro to a telescope under construction called Ice Cube. Built to detect neutrinos rather than light, the telescope involves digital detectors buried more than a mile under Antarctic ice.

The time for the ice over it to freeze, bubble free, is about seven weeks. When finished, the telescope itself will occupy more than a cubic kilometer of ice in the South Pole. ZDnet has more, including a diagram with a (tiny) Eiffel tower for scale.