The international speleo-glaciological expedition to the Central Tien Shan was successfully completed. An international team of cavers explored the intraglacial cave systems.
A group of filmmakers from France made a film about a unique complex expedition. The base camp of the researchers was located at an altitude of more than 3500 m. Extreme temperatures were up to – 17 degrees.
These studies can become part of the scientific and applied results on the study of Earth’s climate change. These studies may be outstanding studies of glacier caves.
Inside-glacial drainages of Enilchek.
The internal drainage system of the Enilchek glacier has not been studied to date. One of the largest glaciers in Asia (over 65 km long) has a well-developed internal drainage system that extends from the ice stream to heights over 4000 m above sea level and has a length of tens of kilometers. The lower 14 km part of the drainage system is formed (or transformed) as a result of the action of powerful streams of thawed glacial water from Merzbacher Lake, which is completely emptied once a year. The drainage system is formed in the layer, where the bedrock contacts with the bottom of the glacier, and possibly in the glacial ice strata. The confluence of the drainage channels of the lake with the internal drainage system of the glacier leads to the formation of the world’s largest internal drainage system, an important role of which is belonged to the high-altitude lake of Merzbacher, located at an altitude of more than 3000 m above sea level.
Periodically, with the annual inrush of the lake, a new drainage system is formed, which is partially confined to the main internal drain of the glacier. This part of the drainage system also continually expands and changes. Due to continuous dynamic processes occurring in the glacial strata during the spring, summer and autumn periods, take shape and expand new drainage channels, and in winter time they disintegrated, crumbled, overgrown by newly formed ice strata and compressed by ice deformation. This cycle occurs annually, invariably repeating.
