Ridging

The pressure process by which sea ice is forced into ridges.

A ridge is a line or wall of broken ice forced up by pressure. May be fresh or weathered. The submerged volume of broken ice under a ridge, forced downwards by pressure, is termed an ice keel.

n the Antarctic, ridges are commonly point features rather than the long linear features observed in the Arctic.

A considerable percentage of ice mass is contained within ridged areas of the Antarctic pack. Data from eight voyages into the East Antarctic pack show that by incorporating the ridged ice, the mean thickness increases, on average, by 1.7 times the observed mean undeformed ice thickness.

Ridging
Ridging
RidgingThe RSV Aurora Australis stopped in heavily ridged ice
This page was last modified on February 3, 2012.