Received wisdom among mountaineers used to be that the maximum depth attained by a crevasse was in the region of 300 feet; at greater depths the ice would flow sideways under vertical stresses to close the gap. Any attempts by myself to verify this limit have until now been frustrated by alert team partners and various quantities of 9-mil nylon rope ... WFL On 11/20/16, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
The TV series 'Game of Thrones' claims a 700' high ice wall.
Game of Thrones uses significant amounts of CGI, so the only place this ice wall exists is inside a computer.
Nevertheless, could a real ice wall of its dimensions be built and stand?
In various scenes, the ice wall is essentially vertical.
I haven't seen the more-or-less vertical ice walls created by 'calving' glaciers personally, so I don't know whether any of them attain 700' in height.
However, unlike those glacier ice walls, the Game of Thrones ice wall is 2-sided, and is warmer on one side -- enough to 'weep' under the sun.
Sooooo...
Based on standard Earth gravity and standard water ice, is a 700' ice wall possible?
Note that the GoT ice wall is flat, so it doesn't gain any stability from being curved, and as a result, could probably not stand up to the high winds that its mere presence would generate.
Ice is only a tad lighter than water, and 700' is approx. 22x the 32' of water that equals 1 atmosphere.
I don't think that WWII *steel* submarines could withstand 700' depths of water, so the pressure at the bottom of such a wall would be quite high and would likely require some reinforcement.
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