Just a hypothetical that caught my interest; What would happen if a river coming down, say, a mountain, traveled far enough to one of the poles that it hits a glacier? Would its momentum just disperse and turn into a pond until the water finds somewhere else to go? Would the water carve into the glacier, like those pictures of ice tunnels you can find on google?
In: Planetary Science
Well the answer really is: “It depends.”
A flow of water meeting a glacier isn’t all that different to a flow of water meeting a rock face: the water will pool until it finds another route down hill. Where that route is will depend on the specific geography of the area. It might find a route under the glacier, it might flow along side it. It might form a lake that backs up, up stream and eventually overflows somewhere else.
Now chances are the water is warmer then the ice, so over time it’ll probably accelerate the glaciers melting where it meets the river, but again, what impact that will ultimately have on the flow of the river and the glacier will again depend entirely on the specific geography of the area.
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