آثار يخسازي و يخچالي در سلفچگان قم

Evidence of Ice Capes and Glaciers in Salafchegan

Examining the morphological evidence on the quaternary glaciers in Iran has been of interest to many researches. However, the beginning of such studies can be traced back to Domorgan (1890) and Bobek. The latter began his work in 1933 and published the results of his research in 1955. In the last decade Iranian Geographers started a new series of research on the climatic conditions of Iran on quaternary period and it is evident that they achieved new results. Geontorphologistsʹ interest in climatic changes and traces of geomorphic evidence have led them to estimate the past climatic data. Using these methods in glaciology of Iran, show that there are four cold troughs in Iran. Being more widespread in quaternary age than present. In these troughs some traces of glacial period as cirques and ice capes are evident (Nernatollahi 1383). This is very interesting for geomorphologists because these regions were much colder than the present during the glacial age. This means that the formative processes of these regions are different and it is possible for us to study the evidence of the formative process system of cold age in these areas. The results of this research show that there are one widespread ice cape and one big glacial valley in Salafchegan, located near one of the driest and hottest point in Iran (Quoin). The analyses of climatic data currently recorded in Iran, on the one hand , and the existence of locations which show remarkable differences in terms of temperature with adjacent regions on the other, have attracted the attention of geomorphologists to such areas, as well as to their distribution . It is evident that, by focusing on the estimated environmental temperature, one can guess that these areas have also shown greater temperature characteristics during the cold periods in the past relative to other reigns adjacent to them. We call the regions which show greater temperature than the areas adjacent to them cold troughs. if the annual temperature of these cold troughs is less than 5c and their surfaces are flat, then we can formulate a hypothesis for the existence of ice capes. The aim of this paper is to identify the cold troughs in Iran and to investigate their geomorphic characteristic so that we can study the possibility of the existence of previous ice capes in these areas.The results of this research revealed ,for the first time, the presence of ice cape and glacial valley in Salafchegan.