Fountain Glacier structureThe glacier is particularly interesting structurally speaking, and shows many unusual attributes. The upper part has impressive flow structures in the form of arcuate banding, with zones of foliation between. The snout area has a series of near-vertical arcuate fractures, which become closer together downwards and rotate to a low angle in the terminal cliffs, where they pass into basal ice. Another set of fractures, roughly parallel to flow, intersects these earlier structures. The structures have a strong influence on the morphology and hydrology of the glacier. | |||
 Aerial view of middle reach of glacier showing curving longitudinal foliation and arcuate crevasse traces. |  Aerial view from similar position, looking down glacier over the same structures. |  One of Fountain Glacier’s accumulation basins with the primary structure, stratification. |  Aerial view of the glacier’s left-hand flow unit, defined by longitudinal foliation that has been deformed into an arc. This pattern is typical of a former surge event. |
 Deformation associated with the apex of the left-hand flow unit. Crevasse traces, some reactivated as thrusts, and a prominent medial moraine are visible. |  Displacement of stratification by a fracture (crevasse trace). |  Coarse clear ice in longitudinal foliation (left to right) cute by a crevasse trace (top to bottom). |  The three-dimensional character of longitudinal foliation is revealed in this ice-dammed lake cliff at the true right-hand margin. |
 Complexity of longitudinal foliation (with isoclinal folding) revealed in water-worn canyon. It is intersected by upglacier-dipping blue veins of rotated crevasse traces. |  A zone of anastomosing closely spaced fractures, trending orthogonally to the glacier margin. |  Aerial view of complex similar-style folding looking upglacier. |  Ice breccia, formed from welding together of ice blocks fallen from the left-lateral glacier cliff. |
 Folding of medial moraines revealed in the canyon wall. Similar style folding is evident on which parasitic folds are superimposed, all cut by an axial planar foliation. |  Detail of longitudinal foliation exposed in canyon wall, showing this structure to be the result of transposition (tight folding) of earlier light and dark (dirty) ice layers. |  Cliff section at the snout’s left-hand margin, showing a prominent layered structure comprising mainly rotated crevasse traces, intersected by earlier and later generations of fractures. |  A large ‘crystal quirk’ comprising radiating coarse clear-ice crystals, formed from the freezing up of a water-filled moulin. |
| Photos Michael Hambrey, July 2014 | |||