see attached

Bons et al. investigated the mechanism behind folding observed at various scales within ice sheets, from centimetre-scale cloudy bands in drill cores to kilometre-scale internal reflections seen in radar data. By analyzing the power spectra of these folds, they find that they lack a characteristic wavelength, unlike Biot-type folds resulting from rheological contrasts between layers. The study proposes that this folding primarily arises from the strong mechanical intrinsic anisotropy of ice. This is supported by numerical models of anisotropic ice deformation and the similarity between the power spectra of cloudy bands and folded biotite schist.

The manuscript provides a great overview of fold theory and the authors concludes their finding very clearly, highlighting the potential impact this study can make. I was less content with the description of the methodology and the results. Here the organisation of the text and the figures introduced some confusion. This being said, I think the manuscript has great merit and after some revision (with special care to the mentioned sections) it will be a great contribution to the Cryosphere. Below, I have provided my comments section by section, mirroring the manuscript's organization.

Introduction

L63: Can you specify what are the certain preferred orientations?

Basic fold terminology and theory

Throughout the text “l” is used within the text, while is used in the equations for the dominant wavelength and the proportionality constant.

Materials and methods

L152-153: This sentence seems like an unnecessary repetition. Instead, after Fig. 4 something is missing that transitions the reader's attention from cloudy bands to large-scale folds observed on radar data.

3.2.1 Numerical modelling: Since they are also discussed later, I think it would be useful to introduce here the numerical models from Llorens et al. Until L216 it has not been mentioned, but then it becomes a significant part of the results and the discussion.

L176: mechanical anisotropy

L189-190: To clarify this: each cluster contains some number of crystals with the same orientation that is then called a grain. Or a cluster contains some grains with a given orientation distribution?

Fold analysis

L 201: It could be useful to say that this was to look at the cloudy bands on ice cores.

I think there is a bit of a mixture of method and results here, with seemingly random order (also inconsistent with the figures) between describing the method and results for ice core, ice radar, numerical anisotropic models and the numerical isotropic models.

Why are Figure 7 and Table 1 in section 3.2.2 and not in section 4?

Table 1: what do 5-153 elements scale to?

Results

L210-275: The results of the Elle-FFT models are compared to the cloudy bands, but the cloudy band's results are described later. This is not logical to me.

Figure 8a – isn’t this already shown in Fig. 6b?

Figure 9 – Is it even reasonable to look at the power spectra of wavelengths that are the same as the sample size?

L308: I can’t observe the change in amplitude increase before and after the 2 mm wavelength.

Figure 10: Move this into the discussion. Why are the axes labelled inside the plot?

Discussion

L328: ..folding this would be… - replace this with the characteristic length scale. It’s not obvious what “this” is referring to.

L330: which are only 3 cm apart -would it be worth adding that this is not observed?

L349: What do you mean here?

L351: intrinsically anisotropic layer?

L377: Not just the CPO evolves with the folding, but also the CPO-induced (macroscopic) anisotropic viscosity.