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A comment on ‘enhanced boulder weathering under late‐lying snow patches’ by ballantyne, C. K., Black, N. M., and Finlay, D. P.
Author(s) -
McCarroll Danny
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
earth surface processes and landforms
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.294
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1096-9837
pISSN - 0197-9337
DOI - 10.1002/esp.3290150509
Subject(s) - weathering , snow , schmidt hammer , lying , geology , physical geography , geography , geomorphology , physics , medicine , compressive strength , radiology , thermodynamics
Ballantyne et al. (1989) compare Schmidt hammer results from late‐lying snowpatches with adjacent snow‐free control sites and claim that their results lend ‘strong and unequivocal support to the concept of enhanced weathering under late‐lying snowpatches’. However, the data presented from sites of different age but in the same area suggest that the difference in results between snowpatch and control sites is unlikely to reflect differences in degree of boulder surface weathering. Their statistical treatment of the data also lends exaggerated significance to rather small absolute differences and obscures between‐boulder variability within sites.