Where are the ice ones? Ice worlds. Wrath of the Titans - Glacial Disasters

Transparent, hard ice, playing in the sun's rays, freezes our rivers and lakes every winter, freezes on the ridges of roofs in long icicles, and turns autumn puddles into smooth, slippery skating rinks for children.

You can make ice in the freezer compartment of your refrigerator even in the middle of a hot summer. It may look like clear glass or cloudy white plastic. Almost everyone knows what ice is and how it is formed - it is just frozen water. But what do we really know about this amazing substance?

What is ice?

First of all, it should be said that the statement that ice is formed from water is not entirely accurate. In addition to water ice, there is also ammonia, methane, and so-called “dry” ice, which is formed when carbon dioxide is frozen. They called it dry because when it melts it does not form puddles: carbon dioxide instantly evaporates directly from its frozen state.

But we will only talk about the ice that is formed from water. Its crystals are characterized by the so-called hexagonal system, when all water molecules are arranged in a regular volumetric lattice, with one molecule connected to the four closest ones. This structure is characteristic of many precious stones and minerals - diamond, quartz, tourmaline, corundum, beryl, etc. The crystal lattice keeps the molecules at a distance from each other, so the density of ice is less than the density of the water from which it is formed. Pieces of ice float on the surface of the water rather than sinking to the bottom.

According to research, there are now about 30 million square kilometers of ice on our planet. The main amount is concentrated on the polar caps - there the thickness of the ice layer in some places reaches 4 kilometers.

How is ice formed?

Getting ice is very simple: you just need to lower the temperature of the water, dropping it below zero degrees. At the same time, the process of crystallization begins in water: its molecules are arranged in an ordered structure, called a crystal lattice. This process occurs equally in a freezer, in a puddle, and in the ocean.

Freezing always starts from the top layer of water. First, microscopic ice needles form in it, which then freeze together, forming a kind of film on the surface of the water column. In large bodies of water, the wind vibrates the surface of the water, forming waves on it, so freezing takes longer than with still water.

If the disturbance continues, the films are churned into ice pancakes up to 30 centimeters in diameter, which are then frozen into a single layer at least 10 centimeters thick. New ice subsequently freezes onto this layer, called young ice, from below and sometimes from above, forming a fairly strong and thick cover.

The strength of ice depends on its type: transparent ice is one and a half times stronger than cloudy white ice. It is believed that a 5-centimeter layer of ice can already support the weight of a person, and a 10-centimeter layer can support the weight of a passenger car. But it is still undesirable to go out on the ice of the reservoir until its thickness reaches 12-15 centimeters.

Properties of ice

The most famous and important property of ice for us is the ability to melt relatively easily, turning into water at zero temperature. From a scientific point of view, it also has other qualities:

— transparency, the ability to transmit light well;

— colorlessness– ice itself has no color, but can be colored by color additives;

— hardness, the ability to maintain its shape without an outer shell;

— fluidity- but this property is inherent in it only in some modifications;

— fragility– a piece of ice breaks even with little force;

— cleavage, i.e. ability to split along crystallographic lines.

The composition of ice is characterized by a high degree of purity, since there is no room for foreign molecules in the crystal lattice. When water freezes, it displaces impurities that were dissolved in it. But many substances dissolved in water inhibit freezing - for example, in sea water Ice forms at a lower temperature than usual, and when freezing, salt is forced out of the water, forming small salt crystals. When they melt, they dissolve again in water. In fact, the process of annual freezing of water maintains its self-purification from various impurities for millions of years in a row.

Where is ice found in nature?

On our planet, ice can be found wherever the ambient temperature drops below zero degrees (Celsius):

- in the atmosphere in the form of small crystals - snow or frost, as well as larger granules -;

- on the surface of the planet in the form of glaciers - centuries-old accumulations located at the North and South Poles, as well as on the tops of the highest mountain ranges;

- underground in the form of permafrost - in the upper layer of the earth's crust around.

In addition, according to research by astronomers, ice, i.e. Frozen water has been discovered on many planets in the solar system. It is found in small quantities on Mars and on a number of dwarf planets, as well as on the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn.

Nagoya University (Japan) Dedicated to my family, Yeoul, Kostya and Stas. Glaciers on Earth and in the Solar System About ten percent of the land is covered with glaciers - long-term masses of snow, firn (from German Firn - last year's compacted granular snow) and ice that have their own movement. These huge rivers of ice, cutting through valleys and grinding down mountains, pushing continents with their weight, store 80% of reserves fresh water of our planet. The Pamirs are one of the main centers of modern glaciation on the planet - inaccessible and little explored (Tajikistan; photo by the author, 2009) The role of glaciers in evolution globe and the person is colossal. The last 2 million years of ice ages became a powerful impetus for the development of primates. Harsh weather conditions forced hominids to struggle for existence in cold conditions, living in caves, the appearance and development of clothing, and the widespread use of fire. The decrease in sea level due to the growth of glaciers and the drying of many isthmuses contributed to the migration of ancient people to America, Japan, Malaysia and Australia.

The largest centers of modern glaciation include:

Antarctica - terra incognita, discovered only 190 years ago and became the record holder for the absolute minimum temperature on Earth: –89.4°C (1974); At this temperature, kerosene freezes;
Greenland, deceptively named the Green Land, is the "icy heart" of the Northern Hemisphere;
The Canadian Arctic archipelago and the majestic Cordillera, where one of the most picturesque and powerful centers of glaciation is located - Alaska, a real modern relic of the Pleistocene;
the most ambitious area of glaciation in Asia - the “abode of snow” Himalayas and Tibet;
“roof of the world” Pamir;
Andes;
“heavenly mountains” Tien Shan and “black scree” Karakorum;
Surprisingly, there are glaciers even in Mexico, tropical Africa (“sparkling mountain” Kilimanjaro, Mount Kenya and the Rwenzori Mountains) and New Guinea!

The science that studies glaciers and other natural systems, the properties and dynamics of which are determined by ice, is called glaciology (from the Latin glacies - ice). "Ice" is a monomineral rock found in 15 crystalline modifications for which there are no names, but only code numbers. They differ different types crystal symmetry (or shape of the unit cell), the number of oxygen atoms in the cell and other physical parameters. The most common modification is hexagonal, but there are also cubic and tetragonal, etc. We conventionally denote all these modifications of the solid phase of water with one single word “ice”.

Ice and glaciers are found everywhere in the solar system: in the shadow of the craters of Mercury and the Moon; in the form of permafrost and polar caps of Mars; in the core of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune; on Europa, a satellite of Jupiter, completely covered, like a shell, with many kilometers of ice; on other moons of Jupiter - Ganymede and Callisto; on one of Saturn's moons - Enceladus, with the most pure ice Solar System, where from the cracks of the ice shell with supersonic speed jets of water vapor hundreds of kilometers high erupt; perhaps on the satellites of Uranus - Miranda, Neptune - Triton, Pluto - Charon; finally, in comets. However, by coincidence of astronomical circumstances, the Earth - unique place, where the existence of water on the surface is possible in three phases at once - liquid, solid and gaseous.

The fact is that ice is a very young mineral of the Earth. Ice is the latest and most superficial mineral, not only in terms of specific gravity: If we distinguish the temperature stages of differentiation of matter in the process of formation of the Earth as an initially gaseous body, then ice formation represents the last step. It is for this reason that snow and ice on the surface of our pallet are everywhere near the melting point and are subject to the slightest climate changes.

The crystalline phase of water is ice. Model photo:

E. Podolsky, 2006

But if under the temperature conditions of the Earth water passes from one phase to another, then for cold Mars (with a temperature difference from –140°C to +20°C) water is mainly in the crystalline phase (although there are sublimation processes leading even to the formation clouds), and much more significant phase transitions are experienced not by water, but by carbon dioxide, falling as snow when the temperature drops, or evaporating when it rises (thus, the mass of the atmosphere of Mars changes from season to season by 25%).

Growth and melting of glaciers

For a glacier to form, a combination of climatic conditions and topography is necessary, under which the annual amount of snowfall (including snowstorms and avalanches) will exceed the loss (ablation) due to melting and evaporation. Under such conditions, a mass of snow, firn and ice appears, which, under the influence of its own weight, begins to flow down the slope.

The glacier is of atmospheric sedimentary origin. In other words, every gram of ice, be it a modest glacier in the Khibiny Mountains or a giant ice dome of Antarctica, was brought by weightless snowflakes that fall year after year, millennium after millennium, in the cold regions of our planet. Thus, glaciers are a temporary stop of water between the atmosphere and the ocean.

Accordingly, if glaciers grow, then the level of the world's oceans drops (for example, up to 120 m during the last ice age); if they contract and retreat, then the sea rises. One of the consequences of this is the existence on the Arctic shelf zone of areas of relict underwater permafrost covered with water. During glaciations, the continental shelf, exposed due to lower sea levels, gradually froze. After the sea rose again, the permafrost thus formed ended up under the waters of the Northern Arctic Ocean, where it continues to exist to this day due to the low temperature of sea water (-1.8°C).

If all the world's glaciers melted, sea levels would rise by 64–70 meters. Now the annual advance of the sea onto land occurs at a rate of 3.1 mm per year, of which about 2 mm is the result of an increase in the volume of water due to thermal expansion, and the remaining millimeter is the result of the intensive melting of mountain glaciers in Patagonia, Alaska and the Himalayas. Recently, this process has been accelerating, increasingly affecting the glaciers of Greenland and West Antarctica, and, according to recent estimates, sea level rise could reach 200 cm by 2100. This will significantly change coastline, will erase more than one island from the world map and take away hundreds of millions of people in the prosperous Netherlands and poor Bangladesh, in the countries Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean, in other parts of the globe, coastal areas with total area more than 1 million square kilometers.

Types of glaciers. Icebergs

Glaciologists distinguish the following main types of glaciers: glaciers mountain peaks, ice domes and sheets, slope glaciers, valley glaciers, reticulated glacial systems (characteristic, for example, of Spitsbergen, where ice completely fills the valleys, and only the tops of the mountains remain above the glacier surface). In addition, as a continuation of land glaciers, sea glaciers and ice shelves are distinguished, which are floating or bottom-based plates with an area of up to several hundred thousand square kilometers (the largest ice shelf - the Ross Glacier in Antarctica - occupies 500 thousand km 2, which is approximately equal to the territory of Spain).

James Ross's ships at the base of the largest ice shelf on Earth, which he discovered in 1841. Engraving, Mary Evans Picture Library, London; adapted from Bailey, 1982

Ice shelves rise and fall with the tides. From time to time, giant ice islands break off from them - the so-called table icebergs, up to 500 m thick. Only one tenth of their volume is above water, which is why the movement of icebergs depends more on sea currents rather than on winds and for which icebergs have more than once caused the death of ships. After the Titanic tragedy, icebergs are being carefully monitored. Nevertheless, disasters caused by icebergs still occur today - for example, the sinking of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker on March 24, 1989 off the coast of Alaska occurred when the ship was trying to avoid a collision with an iceberg.

An unsuccessful attempt by the US Coast Survey to secure a shipping channel off the coast of Greenland (UPI, 1945;

adapted from Bailey, 1982)

The tallest iceberg recorded in the Northern Hemisphere was 168 meters high. And the largest table iceberg ever described was observed on November 17, 1956 from the icebreaker USS Glacier: its length was 375 km, its width was more than 100 km, and its area was more than 35 thousand km 2 (more than Taiwan or Kyushu Island)!

US Navy icebreakers try in vain to push an iceberg out of the seaway (Collection of Charles Swithinbank; adapted from Bailey, 1982)

Commercial transportation of icebergs to countries experiencing fresh water shortages has been seriously discussed since the 1950s. In 1973, one of these projects was proposed - with a budget of 30 million dollars. This project has attracted the attention of scientists and engineers from all over the world; It was headed by Saudi Prince Mohammed al-Faisal. But due to numerous technical problems and unresolved issues (for example, an iceberg that has capsized due to melting and a shift in the center of mass can, like an octopus, drag any cruiser towing it to the bottom), the implementation of the idea is postponed to the future.

The tug churns the sea with all the power of its engines to divert the iceberg from its collision course with the oil exploration vessel (Harald Sund for Life, 1981; adapted from Bailey, 1982)

To encircle an iceberg that is incommensurate in size with any ship on the planet and transport it, melting in warm waters and shrouded in fog. ice island through thousands of kilometers of ocean - it is not yet within the power of man. It is not yet possible for man to wrap an iceberg that is incommensurate in size with any ship on the planet and transport an ice island melting in warm waters and shrouded in fog through thousands of kilometers of ocean.

Examples of iceberg transportation projects. Art by Richard Schlecht; adapted from Bailey, 1982

It is curious that when melting, iceberg ice sizzles like soda (“bergy selzer”) - you can verify this at any polar institute if you are treated to a glass of whiskey with pieces of such ice. This ancient air, compressed under high pressure (up to 20 atmospheres), escapes from the bubbles when melting. The air was trapped as the snow turned into firn and ice, and was then compressed by the enormous pressure of the glacier's mass. A story has been preserved by the 16th century Dutch navigator Willem Barents about how the iceberg near which his ship was standing (near Novaya Zemlya) suddenly collapsed. terrible noise shattered into hundreds of pieces, horrifying all the people on board.

Anatomy of a glacier

The glacier is conventionally divided into two parts: the upper - the feeding area, where snow accumulates and turns into firn and ice, and the lower - the ablation area, where the snow accumulated over the winter melts. The line separating these two areas is called the glacier's feeding boundary. Newly formed ice gradually flows from the upper feeding region to the lower ablation region, where melting occurs. Thus, the glacier is included in the process of geographic moisture exchange between the hydrosphere and the troposphere.

Irregularities, ledges, and an increase in the slope of the glacial bed change the relief of the glacial surface. IN cool places, where the stresses in the ice are extremely high, ice falls and cracks can occur. The Himalayan Chatoru glacier (mountain region of Lagul, Lahaul) begins with a grandiose icefall 2100 m high! A veritable mess of giant columns and towers of ice (called seracs) the Icefall is literally impossible to cross.

The infamous icefall on Nepal's Khumbu glacier at the foot of Everest has cost the lives of many climbers attempting to navigate its diabolical surface. In 1951, a group of climbers led by Sir Edmund Hillary, during a reconnaissance of the surface of the glacier, along which the route of the first successful ascent of Everest was subsequently laid, crossed this forest of ice columns up to 20 meters high. As one of the participants recalled, the sudden roar and strong shaking of the surface under their feet greatly frightened the climbers, but, fortunately, no collapse occurred. One of the subsequent expeditions, in 1969, ended tragically: 6 people were crushed under the sounds of unexpectedly collapsing ice.

Climbers circumvent the fissure of the ill-fated icefall on the Khumbu Glacier during their ascent of Everest (Chris Bonington from Bruce Coleman, Ltd., Middlesex, England, 1972; adapted from Bailey, 1982)

The depth of cracks in glaciers can exceed 40 meters, and the length can be several kilometers. Covered with snow, such gaps into the darkness of the glacial body are a death trap for climbers, snowmobiles or even all-terrain vehicles. Over time, cracks may close due to ice movement. There are cases where the unevacuated bodies of people who fell into cracks were literally frozen into the glacier. So, in 1820, on the slope of Mont Blanc, three guides were knocked down and thrown into a fault by an avalanche - only 43 years later their bodies were discovered melted next to the tongue of a glacier, three kilometers from the site of the tragedy.

Left: Photograph by legendary 19th-century photographer Vittorio Sella of climbers approaching a glacier crevasse in the French Alps (1888, Istituto di Fotografia Alpina, Biella, Italy; adapted from Bailey, 1982). Right: Giant cracks on the Fedchenko glacier (Pamir, Tajikistan; photo by the author, 2009)

Meltwater can significantly deepen cracks and turn them into part of the glacier's drainage system - glacial wells. They can reach 10 m in diameter and penetrate hundreds of meters into the glacial body to the very bottom.

Moulin - a glacial well on the Fedchenko glacier (Pamir, Tajikistan; photo by the author, 2009)

A meltwater lake on the surface of a glacier in Greenland, 4 km long and 8 meters deep, was recently recorded to have disappeared in less than an hour and a half; at the same time, the water flow per second was greater than that of Niagara Falls. All this water reaches the glacier bed and serves as a lubricant, accelerating the sliding of the ice.

A stream of melt water on the surface of the Fedchenko glacier in the ablation zone (Pamir, Tajikistan; photo by the author, 2009)

Glacier speed

Naturalist and mountaineer Franz Joseph Hugi made one of the first measurements of the speed of ice movement in 1827, and unexpectedly for himself. A hut was built on the glacier for overnight stays; When Hugi returned to the glacier a year later, he was surprised to find that the hut was in a completely different place.

The movement of glaciers is caused by two different processes - the sliding of the glacial mass under its own weight along the bed and viscoplastic flow (or internal deformation, when ice crystals change shape under stress and move relative to each other).

Ice crystals (cross-section of ordinary cocktail ice taken under polarized light). Photo: E. Podolsky, 2006; cold laboratory, Nikon Achr 0.90 microscope, Nikon CoolPix 950 digital camera

The speed of glacier movement can range from a few centimeters to more than 10 kilometers per year. So, in 1719, the advance of glaciers in the Alps occurred so quickly that residents were forced to turn to the authorities with a request to take action and force the “damn beasts” (quote) to go back. Complaints about glaciers were also written to the king by Norwegian peasants, whose farms were being destroyed by the advancing ice. It is known that in 1684 two Norwegian peasants were brought before a local court for non-payment of rent. When asked why they refused to pay, the peasants replied that their summer pastures were covered with impending ice. The authorities had to make observations to make sure that the glaciers were actually advancing - and as a result, we now have historical data on the fluctuations of these glaciers!

The fastest glacier on Earth was considered the Columbia Glacier in Alaska (15 kilometers per year), but more recently the Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland came out on top (see the fantastic video of its collapse presented at a recent glaciological conference). The movement of this glacier can be felt while standing on its surface. In 2007, this giant river of ice, 6 kilometers wide and over 300 meters thick, producing about 35 billion tons of the world's tallest icebergs annually, was moving at a speed of 42.5 meters per day (15.5 kilometers per year)!

Pulsating glaciers can move even faster, the sudden movement of which can reach 300 meters per day!

The speed of ice movement within the glacial strata is not the same. Due to friction with the underlying surface, it is minimal near the glacier bed and maximum on the surface. This was first measured after a steel pipe was immersed in a 130-meter-deep hole drilled into a glacier. Measuring its curvature made it possible to construct a profile of the speed of ice movement.

In addition, the ice speed in the center of the glacier is higher compared to its outlying parts. The first transverse profile of the uneven distribution of glacier velocities was demonstrated by the Swiss scientist Jean Louis Agassiz in the forties of the 19th century. He left slats on the glacier, aligning them in a straight line; a year later, the straight line turned into a parabola, with its apex pointing downstream of the glacier.

The following tragic incident can be cited as a unique example illustrating the movement of a glacier. On August 2, 1947, a plane flying a commercial flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago disappeared without a trace 5 minutes before landing. Intensive searches led nowhere. The secret was revealed only half a century later: on one of the slopes of the Andes, on the Tupungato peak (6800 m), in the area of glacier melting, fragments of the fuselage and bodies of passengers began to melt out of the ice. Probably in 1947, due to poor visibility, the plane crashed into a slope, triggered an avalanche and was buried under its deposits in the glacier accumulation zone. It took 50 years for the debris to go through the full cycle of glacier material.

God's plow

The movement of glaciers destroys rocks and transports a huge amount of mineral material (the so-called moraine) - from broken rock blocks to fine dust.

Median moraine of the Fedchenko glacier (Pamir, Tajikistan; photo by the author, 2009)

Thanks to the transport of moraine sediments, many amazing discoveries were made: for example, the main deposits of copper ore in Finland were found from fragments of glacier-transported boulders containing copper inclusions. In the USA, in the deposits of terminal moraines (from which one can judge the ancient distribution of glaciers), gold brought by glaciers (Indiana) and even diamonds weighing up to 21 carats (Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio) were discovered. This caused many geologists to look north to Canada, where the glacier came from. There, between Lake Superior and Hudson Bay, kimberlite rocks were described - although scientists were never able to find kimberlite pipes.

Erratic boulder (a huge block of granite near Lake Como, Italy). From H. T. De la Beche, Sections and Views, Illustrative of Geological Phaenomena (London, 1830)

The very idea that glaciers move was born out of a dispute about the origin of huge erratic boulders scattered across Europe. This is what geologists call large blocks of stone (“wandering stones”), which are completely different in mineral composition from their surroundings (“a granite boulder on limestone to trained eyes looks as strange as polar bear on the sidewalk,” one researcher liked to repeat).

One of these boulders (the famous “Thunder Stone”) became a pedestal for the Bronze Horseman in St. Petersburg. In Sweden there is a known limestone boulder 850 meters long, in Denmark there is a giant block of tertiary and cretaceous clays and sands 4 kilometers long. In England, in the county of Huntingdonshire, 80 km north of London, an entire village was even built on one of the erratic slabs!

A giant boulder on a foot of ice preserved in the shadows. Unteraar Glacier, Switzerland (Library of Congress; adapted from Bailey, 1982)

The “gouging” of hard bedrock by a glacier in the Alps can be up to 15 mm per year, in Alaska - 20 mm, which is comparable to river erosion. The erosive, transporting and accumulating activity of glaciers leaves such a colossal imprint on the face of the Earth that Jean-Louis Agassiz called glaciers “God’s plow”. Many of the planet's landscapes are the result of the activity of glaciers, which 20 thousand years ago covered about 30% of the earth's land.

Rocks polished by glacier; by the orientation of the grooves one can judge the direction of movement of the previous glacier (Pamir, Tajikistan; photo by the author, 2009)

All geologists recognize that the most complex geomorphological formations on Earth are associated with the growth, movement and degradation of glaciers. Erosion landforms such as carts that look like giants' chairs, glacial cirques and troughs appear. Numerous moraine landforms of the Nunataks and erratic boulders, eskers and fluvioglacial deposits appear. Fjords are formed, with walls up to 1500 meters high in Alaska and up to 1800 meters in Greenland and up to 220 kilometers long in Norway or up to 350 kilometers in Greenland (Nordvestfjord Scoresby & Sund East cost). The steep walls of the fjords are loved by base jumpers all over the world. Crazy height and slope allow you to make long jumps of up to 20 seconds of free fall into the void created by glaciers.

Dynamite and glacier thickness

The thickness of a mountain glacier can be tens or even hundreds of meters. The largest mountain glacier in Eurasia, the Fedchenko glacier in the Pamirs (Tajikistan), is 77 km long and more than 900 m thick.

Fedchenko Glacier is the largest glacier in Eurasia, 77 km long and almost a kilometer thick (Pamir, Tajikistan; photo by the author, 2009)

The absolute record holders are the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. The thickness of ice in Greenland was first measured during the expedition of the founder of the theory of continental drift, Alfred Wegener, in 1929-30. To do this, dynamite was detonated on the surface of the ice dome and the time required for the echo (elastic vibrations) reflected from the rock bed of the glacier to return to the surface was determined. Knowing the speed of propagation of elastic waves in ice (about 3700 m/s), the thickness of the ice can be calculated.

Today, the main methods of measuring the thickness of glaciers are seismic and radio sounding. It has been determined that the maximum ice depth in Greenland is about 3408 m, in Antarctica 4776 m (Astrolabe subglacial basin)!

Subglacial Lake Vostok

As a result of seismic radar sounding, researchers made one of the last geographical discoveries XX century - the legendary subglacial Lake Vostok.

In absolute darkness, under the pressure of a four-kilometer thick layer of ice, there is a reservoir of water with an area of 17.1 thousand km 2 (almost like Lake Ladoga) and a depth of up to 1,500 meters - scientists called this water body Lake Vostok. Its existence is due to its location in a geological fault and geothermal heating, which possibly supports the life of bacteria. Like other water bodies on Earth, Lake Vostok, under the influence of the gravity of the Moon and the Sun, undergoes ebbs and flows (1–2 cm). For this reason and because of the difference in depth and temperature, it is assumed that the water in the lake circulates.

Similar subglacial lakes have been discovered in Iceland; More than 280 such lakes are already known in Antarctica today, many of them are connected by subglacial channels. But Lake Vostok is isolated and the largest, which is why it is of greatest interest to scientists. Oxygen-rich water with a temperature of -2.65°C is under a pressure of about 350 bar.

Location and volume of the main subglacial lakes in Antarctica (after Smith et al., 2009); the color corresponds to the volume of lakes (km 3), the black gradient indicates the speed of ice movement (m/year)

The assumption of a very high oxygen content (up to 700–1200 mg/l) in lake water is based on the following reasoning: the measured density of ice at the boundary of the firn-ice transition is about 700–750 kg/m3. This relatively low value is due to the large number of air bubbles. Reaching the lower part of the glacial strata (where the pressure is about 300 bar and any gases “dissolve” in the ice, forming gas hydrates), the density increases to 900–950 kg/m3. This means that each specific unit of volume, melting at the bottom, brings at least 15% of air from each specific unit of surface volume (Zotikov, 2006)

The air is released and dissolved in the water or possibly trapped under pressure in the form of air siphons. This process took place over 15 million years; Accordingly, when the lake was formed, a huge amount of air melted from the ice. There are no analogues of water with such a high concentration of oxygen in nature (the maximum in lakes is about 14 mg/l). Therefore, the range of living organisms that could tolerate such extreme conditions is reduced to a very narrow oxygenophilic framework; Among the species known to science, there is not a single one capable of living in such conditions.

Biologists around the world are extremely interested in obtaining water samples from Lake Vostok, since analysis of ice cores obtained from a depth of 3667 meters as a result of drilling in the immediate vicinity of Lake Vostok itself showed the complete absence of any microorganisms, and these cores are already of interest to biologists they don't represent. But a technical solution to the issue of opening and penetrating an ecosystem sealed for more than ten million years has not yet been found. The point is not only that 50 tons of kerosene-based drilling fluid are now poured into the well, which prevents the well from being closed by ice pressure and freezing of the drill, but also that any man-made mechanism can disrupt the biological balance and pollute the water by introducing into it microorganisms that previously existed there.

Perhaps similar subglacial lakes, or even seas, exist on Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, under tens or even hundreds of kilometers of ice. It is on these hypothetical seas that astrobiologists pin their greatest hopes when searching for extraterrestrial life within the Solar System and are already making plans on how, with the help of nuclear energy (the so-called NASA cryobot), it will be possible to overcome hundreds of kilometers of ice and penetrate into the water space. (On February 18, 2009, NASA and the European Space Agency ESA officially announced that Europe would be the destination of the next historic solar system exploration mission, scheduled to arrive in orbit in 2026.)

Glacioisostasy

The colossal volumes of modern ice sheets (Greenland - 2.9 million km 3, Antarctica - 24.7 million km 3) for hundreds and thousands of meters push the lithosphere with their mass into the semi-liquid asthenosphere (this is the upper, least viscous part of the earth's mantle). As a result, some parts of Greenland are more than 300 m below sea level, and Antarctica is 2555 m below sea level (Bentley Subglacial Trench)! In fact, the continental beds of Antarctica and Greenland are not single massifs, but huge archipelagos of islands.

After the disappearance of the glacier, the so-called glacioisostatic uplift begins, due to the simple principle of buoyancy described by Archimedes: lighter lithospheric plates slowly float to the surface. For example, part of Canada or the Scandinavian Peninsula, which were covered by an ice sheet more than 10 thousand years ago, still continue to experience isostatic uplift at a rate of up to 11 mm per year (it is known that even the Eskimos paid attention to this phenomenon and argued about whether it was rising whether it is land or whether the sea is sinking). It is estimated that if all of Greenland's ice melts, the island will rise by about 600 meters.

It would be difficult to find an inhabited area more susceptible to glacioisostatic uplift than the Replot Skerry Guard Islands in the Gulf of Bothnia. Over the past two hundred years, during which the islands have risen from under the water by about 9 mm per year, the land area has increased by 35%. Residents of the islands gather once every 50 years and happily divide up new plots of land.

Gravity and ice

Just a few years ago, when I was graduating from university, the question of the mass balance of Antarctica and Greenland in the context of global warming was controversial. Whether the volume of these giant ice domes is decreasing or increasing has been very difficult to determine. It has been hypothesized that perhaps warming is bringing more precipitation, and as a result, glaciers are growing rather than shrinking. Data obtained from the GRACE satellites, launched by NASA in 2002, clarified the situation and refuted these ideas.

The greater the mass, the greater the gravity. Since the surface of the Earth is heterogeneous and includes gigantic mountain ranges, vast oceans, deserts, etc., the Earth's gravitational field is also heterogeneous. This gravitational anomaly and its change over time are measured by two satellites - one follows the other and records the relative deviation of the trajectory when flying over objects of different masses. For example, roughly speaking, when flying over Antarctica, the satellite’s trajectory will be a little closer to the Earth, and over the ocean, on the contrary, further.

Long-term observations of flights in the same place make it possible to judge by changes in gravity how the mass has changed. The results showed that the volume of Greenland's glaciers is decreasing annually by approximately 248 km 3, and that of Antarctica's glaciers by 152 km 3. By the way, according to maps compiled with the help of GRACE satellites, not only the process of reduction in the volume of glaciers is recorded, but also the above-mentioned process of glacioisostatic uplift of continental plates.

Gravity changes in North America and Greenland from 2003 to 2007, according to GRACE data, due to intense glacier melt in Greenland and Alaska (blue), and glacioisostatic uplift (red) following the melting of the ancient Laurentian ice sheet (after Heki, 2008)

For example, for the central part of Canada, due to glacioisostatic uplift, an increase in mass (or gravity) was recorded, and for neighboring Greenland - a decrease, due to intensive melting of glaciers.

Planetary significance of glaciers

According to Academician Kotlyakov, “the development of the geographical environment throughout the Earth is determined by the balance of heat and moisture, which largely depends on the characteristics of the distribution and transformation of ice. It takes a huge amount of energy to change water from solid to liquid. At the same time, the transformation of water into ice is accompanied by the release of energy (approximately 35% of the Earth’s external heat turnover).” The spring melting of ice and snow cools the earth and prevents it from warming up quickly; Ice formation in winter warms and prevents it from cooling quickly. If there were no ice, then the temperature differences on Earth would be much greater, the summer heat would be stronger, the frosts would be more severe.

Taking into account seasonal snow and ice cover, it can be assumed that snow and ice cover from 30% to 50% of the Earth's surface. The most important importance of ice for the planet's climate is associated with its high reflectivity - 40% (for snow covering glaciers - 95%), due to which significant cooling of the surface occurs over vast areas. That is, glaciers are not only invaluable reserves of fresh water, but also sources of strong cooling of the Earth.

Interesting consequences of the reduction in the mass of glaciation in Greenland and Antarctica were a weakening of the gravitational force that attracts huge masses of ocean water and a change in the angle of inclination of the earth's axis. The first is a simple consequence of the law of gravity: the less mass, the less attraction; the second is that the Greenland ice sheet loads the globe asymmetrically, and this affects the rotation of the Earth: a change in this mass affects the planet’s adaptation to the new symmetry of mass, due to which the Earth’s axis shifts annually (up to 6 cm per year).

The first guess about the gravitational influence of glaciation mass on sea level was made by the French mathematician Joseph Alphonse Adhémar, 1797–1862 (he was also the first scientist to point out the connection between ice ages and astronomical factors; after him the theory was developed by Kroll (see James Croll) and Milankovic). Adhemar tried to estimate the thickness of the ice in Antarctica by comparing the depths of the Arctic and Southern Oceans. His idea was that the depth of the Southern Ocean is much greater than the depth of the Arctic Ocean due to the strong attraction of water masses by the giant gravitational field of the Antarctic ice cap. According to his calculations, to maintain such a strong difference between the water levels of the north and south, the thickness of the ice cover of Antarctica should have been 90 km.

Today it is clear that all these assumptions are incorrect, except that the phenomenon still occurs, but with a lower magnitude - and its effect can radially spread up to 2000 km. The implications of this effect are that the rise in global sea levels as a result of melting glaciers will be uneven (although current models incorrectly assume an even distribution). As a result, in some coastal areas sea level will rise 5–30% above average (northeastern Pacific and southern Indian Oceans), and in some - lower ( South America, western, southern and eastern shores Eurasia) (Mitrovica et al., 2009).

Frozen millennia - a revolution in paleoclimatology

On May 24, 1954, at 4 o’clock in the morning, Danish paleoclimatologist Willi Dansgaard raced on a bicycle through deserted streets to the central post office with a huge envelope covered with 35 stamps and addressed to the editors of the scientific publication Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. The envelope contained the manuscript of an article, which he was in a hurry to publish as soon as possible. He was struck by a fantastic idea, which would later revolutionize the climate sciences of ancient eras and which he would develop throughout his life.

Willie Dansgaard with an ice core, Greenland, 1973

(after Dansgaard, 2004)

Dansgaard's research showed that the amount of heavy isotopes in sediments can determine the temperature at which they were formed. And he thought: what actually prevents us from determining the temperature of past years by simply taking and analyzing the chemical composition of the water of that time? Nothing! The next logical question is: where to get ancient water? In glacial ice! Where can I get ancient glacial ice? In Greenland!

This amazing idea was born several years before the technology for deep glacier drilling was developed. When the technological issue was resolved, an amazing thing happened: scientists discovered an incredible way to travel into the Earth's past. With every centimeter of ice drilled, the blades of their drills began to plunge deeper and deeper into paleohistory, revealing ever more ancient secrets of climate. Every ice core pulled out of a hole was a time capsule.

Examples of changes in the structure of ice cores with depth, NorthGRIP, Greenland. Dimensions of each section: length 1.65 m, width 8–9 cm. Depths shown (for additional information, refer to the original source): (a) 1354.65–1356.30 m; (b) 504.80–1506.45 m; (c) 1750.65–1752.30 m; (d) 1836.45–1838.10 m; (e) 2534.40–2536.05 m; (f) 2537.70–2539.35 m; (g) 2651.55–2653.20 m; (h) 2899.05–2900.70 m; (i) 3017.30–3018.95 m (after Svensson et al., 2005)

By deciphering the secret script written in hieroglyphs of a whole variety of chemical elements and particles, spores, pollen and bubbles of ancient air hundreds of thousands of years old, you can obtain invaluable information about irrevocably lost millennia, worlds, climates and phenomena.

Time machine 4000 m deep

Age of the oldest Antarctic ice With maximum depths(more than 3500 meters), the search for which is still ongoing, is estimated to be about one and a half million years old. Chemical analysis of these samples allows us to get an idea of the ancient climate of the Earth, the news of which was brought and preserved in the form of chemical elements by weightless snowflakes that fell from the skies hundreds of thousands of years ago.

This is similar to the story of Baron Munchausen's journey through Russia. During a hunt somewhere in Siberia, there was a terrible frost, and the baron, trying to call his friends, blew his horn. But to no avail, as the sound froze in the horn and only thawed out the next morning in the sun. Roughly the same thing is happening today in the cold laboratories of the world under electron tunneling microscopes and mass spectrometers. Ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica are many kilometers long time machines, going back centuries and millennia. The deepest to this day remains the legendary well drilled under the Vostok station (3677 meters). Thanks to it, the connection between changes in temperature and the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past 400 thousand years was shown for the first time and ultra-long-term suspended animation of microbes was discovered.

Antarctic ice core from a depth of 3200 m, about 800,000 years old, Dome Concordia (photo J. Schwander, University of Bern) © Natural History Museum, Neuchâtel

Detailed paleoreconstructions of air temperature are based on an analysis of the isotopic composition of cores - namely, the percentage of the heavy oxygen isotope 18 O (its average content in nature is about 0.2% of all oxygen atoms). Water molecules containing this isotope of oxygen are more difficult to evaporate and condense more easily. Therefore, for example, the content of 18 O in water vapor above the sea surface is lower than in sea water. Conversely, water molecules containing 18 O are more likely to participate in condensation on the surface of snow crystals forming in clouds, due to which their content in precipitation is higher than in the water vapor from which precipitation is formed.

The lower the temperature at which precipitation is formed, the stronger this effect manifests itself, that is, the more 18 O it contains. Therefore, by assessing the isotopic composition of snow or ice, it is possible to estimate the temperature at which precipitation was formed.

Average daily temperature variation (black curve) and 18 O variation in precipitation (gray dots) for one season (2.2003–1.2004), Dome Fuji, Antarctica (after Fujita and Abe, 2006). 18 O () - deviation of the concentration of the heavy isotopic constituent of water (H 2 O 18) from the international standard (SMOW) (see Dansgaard, 2004)

And then, using known altitude temperature profiles, estimate what the surface air temperature was hundreds of thousands of years ago, when a snowflake first fell on the Antarctic dome to turn into ice, which will be extracted today from a depth of several kilometers during drilling.

Temperature variation relative to today over the past 800 thousand years based on ice cores from Vostok station and Dome C (EPICA) (after Rapp, 2009)

The snow that falls annually carefully preserves not only information about air temperature on the petals of snowflakes. The number of parameters measured in laboratory analysis is currently enormous. Signals are detected in tiny ice crystals volcanic eruptions, nuclear tests, Chernobyl disaster, anthropogenic lead levels, dust storms, etc.

Examples of changes in various paleoclimatic chemical signals in ice with depth (after Dansgaard, 2004). a) Seasonal fluctuations of 18 O (marked in black summer season) allowing dating of cores (section from depths of 405–420 m, Milcent station, Greenland). b) Specific radioactivity is shown in gray; peak after 1962 corresponds to more nuclear tests of this period (surface section of the core to a depth of 16 m, Crte station, Greenland, 1974). c) The change in the average acidity of annual layers allows us to judge the volcanic activity of the northern hemisphere, since 550 AD. to 1960s (Art. Cr te, Greenland)

The amount of tritium (3H) and carbon-14 (14C) can be used to date the age of the ice. Both of these methods have been elegantly demonstrated on ancient wines - the years on the labels perfectly correspond to the dates calculated from the analyses. But this is an expensive pleasure, and a lot of lime goes into the tests...

Information about the history of solar activity can be quantified by the nitrate (NO 3 –) content of glacial ice. Heavy nitrate molecules are formed from NO in the upper layers of the atmosphere under the influence of ionizing cosmic radiation (protons from solar flares, galactic radiation) as a result of a chain of transformations of nitrogen oxide (N 2 O) entering the atmosphere from the soil, nitrogen fertilizers and fuel combustion products (N 2 O + O → 2NO). After formation, the hydrated anion falls out with precipitation, some of which ends up buried in the glacier along with the next snowfall.

Beryllium-10 (10Be) isotopes provide insight into the intensity of deep space cosmic rays bombarding the Earth and changes in our planet's magnetic field.

The changes in the composition of the atmosphere over the past hundreds of thousands of years were told by small bubbles in the ice, like bottles thrown into the ocean of history, preserving for us samples of ancient air. They showed that over the past 400 thousand years, the content of carbon dioxide (CO 2) and methane (CH 4) in the atmosphere is the highest today.

Today, laboratories already store thousands of meters of ice cores for future analysis. In Greenland and Antarctica alone (that is, not counting mountain glaciers), a total of about 30 km of ice cores have been drilled and recovered!

Ice age theory

The beginning of modern glaciology was laid by the theory of ice ages that appeared in the first half of the 19th century. The idea that glaciers in the past extended hundreds or thousands of kilometers to the south previously seemed unthinkable. As one of the first glaciologists of Russia, Pyotr Kropotkin (yes, that same one), wrote, “at that time, belief in an ice sheet that reached Europe was considered an impermissible heresy...”.

Jean Louis Agassiz, pioneer of glaciological research. C. F. Higuel, 1887, marble.

The founder and main defender of the glacial theory was Jean Louis Agassiz. In 1839 he wrote: “The development of these huge ice sheets must have led to the destruction of all organic life on the surface. The lands of Europe, once covered with tropical vegetation and inhabited by herds of elephants, hippos and giant carnivores, were buried under overgrown ice covering plains, lakes, seas and mountain plateaus.<...>All that remained was the silence of death... The springs dried up, the rivers froze, and the rays of the sun rising above the frozen shores... met only a whisper northern winds and the roar of cracks opening in the middle of the surface of a gigantic ocean of ice.”

Most geologists of the time, little familiar with Switzerland and the mountains, ignored the theory and were unable to even believe in the plasticity of ice, let alone imagine the thickness of the glacial strata described by Agassiz. This continued until the first scientific expedition to Greenland (1853–55), led by Elisha Kent Kane, reported complete glaciation of the island (“an ocean of ice of infinite size”).

The recognition of the theory of ice ages had an incredible impact on the development of modern natural science. The next key question was the reason for the change of ice ages and interglacials. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Serbian mathematician and engineer Milutin Milanković developed a mathematical theory describing the dependence of climate change on changes in the orbital parameters of the planet, and devoted all his time to calculations to prove the validity of his theory, namely, determining the cyclic change in the amount of solar radiation entering the Earth (so called insolation). The Earth, spinning in the void, is in a gravitational web of complex interactions between all objects solar system. As a result of orbital cyclic changes (eccentricity of the earth's orbit, precession and nutation of the tilt of the earth's axis), the amount of solar energy entering the earth changes. Milankovitch found the following cycles: 100 thousand years, 41 thousand years and 21 thousand years.

Unfortunately, the scientist himself did not live to see the day when his insight was elegantly and flawlessly proven by paleoceanographer John Imbrie. Imbrie assessed past temperature changes by studying cores from the floor of the Indian Ocean. The analysis was based on the following phenomenon: different kinds plankton prefer different, strictly defined temperatures. Every year, the skeletons of these organisms settle on the ocean floor. By lifting this layered cake from the bottom and identifying the species, we can judge how the temperature changed. The paleotemperature variations determined in this way surprisingly coincided with the Milankovitch cycles.

Today we know that cold glacial eras were followed by warm interglacials. Complete glaciation of the globe (according to the so-called “snowball” theory) supposedly took place 800–630 million years ago. The last glaciation of the Quaternary period ended 10 thousand years ago.

The ice domes of Antarctica and Greenland are relics of past glaciations; if they disappear now, they will not be able to recover. During periods of glaciation, continental ice sheets covered up to 30% of the globe's land mass. So, 150 thousand years ago the thickness glacial ice over Moscow was about a kilometer, and over Canada - about 4 km!

The era in which human civilization now lives and develops is called the Ice Age, the interglacial period. According to calculations made on the basis of Milankovitch's orbital climate theory, the next glaciation will occur in 20 thousand years. But the question remains whether the orbital factor will be able to overcome the anthropogenic one. The fact is that without the natural greenhouse effect, our planet would have average temperature–6°C, instead of today’s +15°C. That is, the difference is 21°C. The greenhouse effect has always existed, but human activity greatly enhances this effect. Now the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere is the highest in the last 800 thousand years - 0.038% (while previous maximums did not exceed 0.03%).

Today, glaciers around the world (with some exceptions) are rapidly shrinking; the same goes for sea ice, permafrost and snow cover. It is estimated that half of the world's mountain glaciation will disappear by 2100. About 1.5–2 billion people living in various countries in Asia, Europe and America may face the fact that rivers fed by meltwater from glaciers will dry up. At the same time, rising sea levels will rob people of their land in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the Caribbean and Europe.

Wrath of the Titans - Glacial Disasters

Increasing technogenic impact on the planet's climate may increase the likelihood of natural disasters associated with glaciers. Masses of ice have gigantic potential energy, the implementation of which can have monstrous consequences. Some time ago, a video of a small column of ice collapsing into the water and the subsequent wave that washed away a group of tourists from nearby rocks circulated on the Internet. Similar waves 30 meters high and 300 meters long were observed in Greenland.

The glacial disaster that occurred in North Ossetia on September 20, 2002 was recorded on all seismometers in the Caucasus. The collapse of the Kolka glacier provoked a gigantic glacial landslide - 100 million m 3 of ice, stones and water rushed through the Karmadon Gorge at a speed of 180 km per hour. Mudflow splashes tore away loose sediments of the valley sides in places up to 140 meters high. 125 people died.

One of the world's worst glacial disasters was the collapse of the northern slope of Mount Huascaran in Peru in 1970. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake triggered an avalanche of millions of tons of snow, ice and rocks (50 million m3). The collapse stopped only after 16 kilometers; two cities buried under rubble turned into a mass grave for 20 thousand people.

Trajectories of ice avalanches Nevados Huascarán 1962 and 1970, Peru

(according to UNEP’s DEWA/GRID-Europe, Geneva, Switzerland)

Another type of glacial hazard is the outburst of dammed glacial lakes that occur between a melting glacier and a terminal moraine. The height of terminal moraines can reach 100 m, creating enormous potential for the formation of lakes and their subsequent outburst.

Potentially dangerous moraine-dammed periglacial lake Tsho Rolpa in Nepal, 1994 (volume: 76.6 million m 3, area: 1.5 km 2, moraine height: 120

Potentially dangerous moraine-dammed periglacial lake Tsho Rolpa in Nepal, 1994 (volume: 76.6 million m3, area: 1.5 km2, moraine height: 120 m). Photo is the courtesy of N. Takeuchi, Graduate School of Science, Chiba University

The most dramatic glacial lake outburst occurred through the Hudson Strait into the Labrador Sea about 12,900 years ago. The outburst of Lake Agassiz, whose area was larger than the Caspian Sea, caused an abnormally rapid (over 10 years) cooling of the North Atlantic climate (by 5°C in England), known as the Younger Dryas (see Younger Dryas) and discovered in the analysis of Greenland ice cores. Great amount fresh water disrupted the thermohaline circulation of the Atlantic Ocean, which blocked the transfer of heat by currents from low latitudes. Today, such an abrupt process is feared due to global warming, which is desalinating the waters of the North Atlantic.

Nowadays, due to the accelerated melting of the world's glaciers, the size of dammed lakes is increasing and, accordingly, the risk of their breakthrough is growing.

Increase in the area of periglacial dammed lakes on the northern (left) and southern (right) slopes of the Himalayan range (after Komori, 2008)

In the Himalayas alone, 95% of whose glaciers are rapidly melting, there are about 340 potentially dangerous lakes. In 1994, in Bhutan, 10 million cubic meters of water spilled from one of these lakes and traveled 80 kilometers at tremendous speed, killing 21 people.

According to forecasts, outburst of glacial lakes could become an annual disaster. Millions of people in Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet will not only face the inevitable question of cuts water resources due to the disappearance of glaciers, but will also find themselves face to face with the mortal danger of lake outbursts. Hydroelectric power stations, villages, and infrastructure can be destroyed in an instant by terrible mudflows.

A series of images demonstrating the intense retreat of the Nepalese glacier AX010, Shürong region (27°42"N, 86°34"E). (a) 30 May 1978, (b) 2 Nov. 1989, (c) 27 Oct. 1998, (d) 21 Aug. 2004 (Photos by Y. Ageta, T. Kadota, K. Fujita, T. Aoki are the courtesy of the Cryosphere Research Laboratory, Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University)

Another type of glacial disaster is lahars, which occur as a result of volcanic eruptions covered with ice caps. The meeting of ice and lava gives rise to gigantic volcanogenic mud mudflows, typical of the country of “fire and ice” of Iceland, Kamchatka, Alaska and even on Elbrus. Lahars can reach monstrous sizes, being the largest among all types of mudflows: their length can reach 300 km, and their volume can reach 500 million m3.

On the night of November 13, 1985, residents of the Colombian city of Armero woke up from a crazy noise: a volcanic mudflow swept through their city, washing away all the houses and structures in its path - its seething liquid claimed the lives of 30 thousand people. Another tragic incident occurred on the fateful Christmas evening of 1953 in New Zealand - the breakthrough of a lake from an icy crater of a volcano triggered a lahar that washed away railroad bridge literally in front of the train. The locomotive and five carriages carrying 151 passengers plunged and disappeared forever into the rushing current.

In addition, volcanoes can simply destroy glaciers - for example, the monstrous eruption of the North American volcano Saint Helens destroyed 400 meters of the mountain's height along with 70% of the volume of glaciers.

Ice people

The harsh conditions in which glaciologists have to work are perhaps some of the most difficult that modern scientists face. Most of Field observations involve working in cold, inaccessible and remote parts of the globe, with harsh solar radiation and insufficient oxygen. In addition, glaciology often combines mountaineering with science, thereby making the profession deadly.

Base camp of the expedition to the Fedchenko glacier, Pamir; altitude approximately 5000 m above sea level; there is about 900 m of ice under the tents (photo by the author, 2009)

Frostbite is familiar to many glaciologists, which is why, for example, a former professor at my institute had his fingers and toes amputated. Even in a comfortable laboratory, temperatures can drop to -50°C. In the polar regions, all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles sometimes fall into 30-40-meter cracks; severe snowstorms often make the high-altitude workdays of researchers a real hell and claim more than one life every year. This is a job for strong and resilient people, sincerely devoted to their work and the endless beauty of the mountains and poles.

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Comment from Foxin

Soon my Outer Haven will be here, from here I will begin my journey to create my own country. So don’t be surprised if I suddenly steal your farm or your breakfast, or maybe you. True, the government will probably send some kind of Snake to me. But if you want to join, then come, I have Ocelot and Metal Gears, everything else is not filled in yet. See you everyone, B* B*** (name encrypted for your safety) *reached into the box*

P.S. if you didn’t like my nonsense, then feel free to put a minus, since all this is completely inappropriate here, I’m just writing based on emotions from one of my favorite series of games, Peace to everyone;)

Comment from Foxin

My Outer Haven will soon be ready, fulton go. Hide their breakfasts and themselves, fulton knows no boundaries.

Comment from Foxin

Chapter 1. This is my garrison!
This happened on Thursday, the 13th day of the 11th month, year 2014 from the Nativity of Christ. It was cold outside, it seems to me, I wanted to quickly come home from lousy work and see new world, whose name is Draenor. There were no problems with entry. I thought that IM finally managed to get by without any problems at launch. When I entered the game, I was greeted by a letter from Khadgar, he said that I am the greatest warrior of Azeroth, that only I can save everyone. I went to the portal where I was greeted by the great heroes of the two factions. Together we broke through the portal and saw the great hordes of the Iron Horde. I thought that everything was lost, but I was also glad that THEY managed to make such an epic. I helped the Great Heroes repel the attack and destroy the portal, the forces of ZhO no longer threatened Azeroth. We met the cruel Leaders of the ZhO, and we had to run away. We ran and ran until we finally reached the JO ships. We stole one of them and went to the other end of the continent. And then it begins...
*Lights a cigarette* The weather outside deteriorated, it became darker and darker, the good mood began to fall, and only thoughts of Draenor brought him back. The loading took place and it turned out that the ship crashed. I ran away from the shore with Thrall. Later we met the Great Chieftain Durotan of the Frostwolf Clan. Fortunately, this clan was against ZhO, and we decided to join forces to push back the forces of ZhO. Everything went well until finally I reached the place where we planned to build a camp for me. As the commander of the Horde forces, I had to build a fortress here and consolidate the influence of the Horde on this continent, from here the real campaign against the forces of the ZhO was supposed to begin. The first two tasks that my manager and architect assigned only brought a smile. They were so simple. Of course, before that I had to search for him for a long time in a pile of a couple of thousand other heroes. As soon as I moved away from this heap, truly magical things began to happen. I saw dozens of corpses of gronn - creatures that had to be killed to build the Garrison. They were all at one point and did not disappear. Then I didn’t pay attention to it... But after a couple of minutes I saw that the cast of any item took 30 seconds or even a minute longer. It was here that I saw the light! I saw that the gronn I attacked did not react to me at all! But after one minute he took damage, and I discovered that there were dozens of other heroes nearby. After an hour of completing the first two tasks, I did a couple more and got HIM! All the torment was precisely for HIM! I thought that all problems would disappear as soon as the much-praised Garrison appeared. After all, there was a phasing system and there shouldn’t have been any lags or responses for a couple of minutes, maybe just a little. But I have never been so wrong in my life (c) The first 34! The approach finally yielded results, and as soon as the valiant defenders of the garrison began to arrive, I saw what was in My Garrison! there were still a THOUSAND HEROES!
*Lights 6 cigarettes in an hour and a half* This world is mired in corruption, the evil forces of the Ancient Gods penetrated my brain and showed me these illusions, I thought. The precipitation outside the window intensified, the darkness became more and more. Meanwhile, in the Garrison they shouted only one thing: “This is my garrison!” “Get the n&@ out of my garrison” “What kind of illegal immigrants are these in my garrison”” that’s what they shouted... The enmity intensified, an internecine war was ready to begin in the Horde and the Alliance. But everything changed in the patch with the murlocs! Then riding on Gamon the defender of the entire Universe arrived - Hogger! He saved everyone from the war. And two days later the conflict was over. The valiant heroes of the two factions repulsed the forces of ZhO in all directions, but of course victory was still far away.
During the internecine war, such heroes as Velen, Orgrim, Maraad, Ga"nar were lost...

Money has no meaning now. People pay with feelings. Some earned them handsomely, while others took advantage of the feelings that nature gave them. In particular, they were all right that it disrupted the functioning of the pituitary gland and hypothalamus.
John was too lazy. He didn’t want to work, but at the same time he wanted to roll around like cheese in butter. Living in luxury is his dream. He wanted to buy a car for this purpose. He came to a car dealership. And he looked sideways at the price tag - joy and happiness. Contradiction seethed within him; live in luxury or live like a man. Noticing the client's interest, the consultant approached him.
- Would you like to purchase? The consultant asked.
- Excuse me, do you have a cheaper one? John asked tensely.
- It’s cheaper in my grandfather’s garage, and it’s retro style, titanium wheels, a 10-year warranty, gasoline consumption is 5 liters per 100 km. Radio tape recorder, complete stuffing. Then the consultant tried, using facts about the car and various jargons, to understand what social status John might have.
- Well, will you take it?
- Don't rush me! Since I bought an apartment out of confidence and pride, I can’t be sure of anything.
John looked at the car.
- Can I have something for my conscience?
- Pfft, baby, now what you can buy for your conscience is a maximum of matches. The consultant leaned on his shoulder as if they were old friends.
- Oh, what the hell is not joking!
- Let's! He closed his eyes and held out his hand to pay.
the consultant took out a payment terminal, smiled sarcastically and said slyly;
- You have happiness and joy.
Now John drives around in a beautiful car. He wants to be happy, but he can't.

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