AES wrote:
In article 47fa62ac@darkstar, (Eugene Miya)
wrote:

In article ,
Booker Bense wrote:
In article ,
AES wrote:
Anyone have pointers to more formal studies of these stratigraphic
records?
Ask in sci.geo.geology and sci.geo.hydrology.

The evolution of the snowpack over the season is the basis of all
avalanche hazard estimation. The "standard" reference book there
is "The Avalanche Handbook".

In terms of other fields, most of that kind of analysis of the
snowpack happens in the Antarctic. There was an PBS show a few
years back of a climb of a new route on Mt. Vinson in the
antarctic w/Jon Krackuar where digging snow pits and examining
the layers was part of the expedition.
UNR has Tahoe records which should go back the late 1890s when they
started using the Rose Snow Sampler. There's a national repository of
ice cores near Boulder.

Driving home from winter hibernation today (sob), noticed one face with
particularly sharp clean layers about halfway up the Old Donner Pass
Road, under a rock overhang which protected it from direct sun. Thicker
layers up there than in similar examples alongside 28 or 89 down by the
Lake!

Wish I'd had a bit more time the past couple of weeks to do some
systematic photography. I'd make a hypothesis that the dirt layers
might be slightly different -- some of the lesser ones might be missing
-- on roadsides in places like Emerald Bay or Old Donner Pass Road,
which aren't always get plowed out and opened to traffic between storms
as quickly as other roads.

Pardon me for getting a bit turned on by this topic, but it's another of
those examples of "science in everyday life" that always seem neat to
me. Another one with a Tahoe wintertime locus that intrigued me a few
years ago is at:

http://www.stanford.edu/~siegman/snowmelt_soliton_index.html

Warning: I did this several years back, when I was just learning to put
things on web sites, and the movies are way oversized and slow to
download. (And, this was prepared in part with one of my Asian
colleagues, Dr. Tung Inn Cheeek.)

On road cuts, some of the stratigraphy is highlighted by the blowing of
prior storms' snows loaded down with sand from the road. Later in the
season, you can see pollen layers from the conifers. Cool stuff!

Dan