A Study of Formation of a Surface Snow Layer

The process of surface layer formation was observed in Mizuho Plateau from the coast inland, including Mizuho Camp at the elevation of 2169m above sea level, by measuring a net snow accumulation at three stations, each with a pair of 100-stake lines set up, each line perpendicularly intersecting, and each stake aligned at a 1m interval, and at six stations, each with a stake farm consisting of 36 stakes spaced 20m apart in a 100m square grid. The observations disclosed that the characteristics of deposition-erosion process at the surface vary with time and place, that a surface layer is formed annually all over the site of H180 (1540m) and its vicinities, sporadically at and near S122 (1853m), as well as at Mizuho Camp where either one or no annual layer was formed during a three-year period, the width of such a layer being less than 15m in most of cases, and that the formation of a dune, one of the depositional phenomena, is closely related to the temporal variation of wind associated with the occurrence of a cyclone. A proposal is made in this paper for categorizing the process of surface layer formation into three types