ON THE UNIQUENESS OF THE CASE WITH THE GLACIER KOLKA

Abstract

Reconstructive genetic and prognostic issues related to the glacier restoration at the site of the former Kolka Glacier, that was destroyed and almost completely thrown out of its container on September 20, 2002, are discussed. The main initial, primary unique feature of the case with Kolka, which defined for decades many often unique features of the processes occurring in its former container, is the almost instantaneous disappearance of this glacier as a result of its explosive sudden gas-dynamic ejection. The uniqueness of the case with the Kolka glacier is not that it is quickly restored, thus demonstrating the unconditional glaciological regularity of its existence in the Kolka Gorge in spite of any climatic, hydrometeorological and other exogenous conditions, but that this glacier, contrary to all glaciological laws, was almost immediately destroyed and disappeared on September 20, 2002, not because of degradation glacioclimatic conditions, without any glaciological preconditions for this. Already these facts alone clearly indicate the non-stylistic reason for the instantaneous disappearance («descent») of the Kolka Glacier and, accordingly, the entire Kolka (Karmadon, Genaldon) catastrophe. Although annihilation of the Kolka Glacier was caused by its paroxysmal gas-dynamic discharge, for a long time (not less than several decades) for any processes occurring in a given region excludes the possibility of accumulation of high-pressure natural gases in the near-surface zone of this section of the earth’s crust, deep processes of their isolation, concentration and ascending migration in the Kazbek-Dzhimara district do not stop, and, perhaps, to some extent even intensify, gain in strength and accelerate, which, apparently, is observed in the latter years. From the moment of the Kolka glacier restoration and the acquisition of the properties of an impenetrable gas barrier, the gas dynamic development cycle of the glacier will enter a potentially dangerous phase when the manifestation possibility of the next catastrophic pulsation of the glacier will be determined mainly by the extraglacial abyssal post-volcanic processes in this region.