What could you mine from a city squashed by an ice sheet - in a new ice age?

Western civilisation fell over a few centuries ago, because the Earth shifted back into a full on ice age climate. Oh and Skynet kind of happened.

Ice sheets expanded, inexorably rolling over the top of Scandinavia, the UK, Canada and so on. The countries a bit south of the ice have turned into tundra (which is no use for growing crops). Map of Europe in the ice age

Folks have scarpered for more hospitable lands. And the deserts have expanded too "“ all that water locked up as ice "“ so places to sustain a huge population are few and far between.

Meanwhile, there are all those northern cities which got squashed under ice sheets and glaciers. I know glaciers grind rocks up and slowly transport bits of rock "˜downstream', so I was wondering if people (or Skynet's robot minions) could venture into the tundra to mine for anything useful at the snout of glaciers?

Could they pan for rusty "˜pebbles' of steel in glacial out-wash streams? Will they find fragments of copper pipe or electrical wire in the glacial moraine? Basically is there likely to be anything worth mining or will the random fragments only be of interest to archaeologists?

Assumptions:

• The ice took a decade to overwhelm a country, so there was plenty of time to empty bank vaults of gold bullion. But people probably didn't rip out rebar from reinforced concrete walls or nick all the pipes and wiring from the buildings before they left, since they were being shot at by "˜terminators' in the final stage of the exodus.
• The buildings in the cities are the same types and constructions as you find in European cities today. Bricks, concrete, glass and steel, tarmac roads, steel & wood railway tracks, etc.
• I'm specifically interested in stuff which comes from a city which is still under the ice. Even at maximum summer melt, the site of the city is still completely covered in a glacier.
• People/Skynet know which glaciers potentially have bits of city washed out of them, and which are barren of useful stuff.

I'm not expecting the miners to tunnel through miles of ice to get to the city. I'm interested in what the ice could have transported from the site of the crushed city to the edge of the ice sheet/snout of glacier.

posted about 8 years ago

DrBob‭

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