Friday, April 19, 2013

Module #14


1. Choose one glacier (alpine or continental)in the world. Describe the type of glacier it is, the rate of ablation, the country it is located in and at least 3 interesting facts about this particular glacier. Provide any and all sites that you got your information from.

2. Include a link to a photograph, map of location or video of the glacier.

14 comments:

  1. Pasterze Glacier is an alpine glacier located in Austria. The rate of ablation of this glacier is approxamitely 10 metres per year. The Pasterze Glacier is the biggest glacier in Austria, covering 18.5 square kilometres. This glacier is also at risk of losing 60% of it's mass by 2100. Water runoff from the glacier is used a lot for providing hydro to the citizens of the surrounding area.

    http://ih1.redbubble.net/image.8614971.9005/flat,550x550,075,f.u1.jpg

    References:
    http://cgull8m.hubpages.com/hub/The-Top-10-Glaciers-In-The-World
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasterze_glacier
    http://famous101.com/famous-glaciers-in-the-world

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  3. The Baltoro Glacier is an alpine glacier located in Northern Pakistan. It is approximately 62 kilometres long, making it one of the longest glaciers outside of the polar regions. This glacier has a very wide trough, and it has created various striations of the surrounding rocks. The movement of this glacier has created large depressions that in turn can serve as basins for many glacial lakes. Studies have proven that the ablation rate of this particular glacier is very difficult to determine as it oscillates back and forth several hundred metres on a regular rate. However, the ablation does seem to be minimal, and it seems not to react with the same magnitude as other glaciers do to climate change. Ablation seems to be a few tens of metres at the most per year.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baltoro_glacier_from_air.jpg

    References:
    http://www.concordiaexpeditions.com/pakistan-concordia-k2-trip.htm
    http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/igsoc/agl/2006/00000043/00000001/art00018?token=004c10687e442f2067217a7646447b495b6d5f6c38687627504541676249266d656c349365e1

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  4. The Aletsch Glacier is a Valley Glacier. Located in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland, it is the largest glacier in the Alps, covering an area of over 120 square kilometres. It is roughly 23 kilometres long with a thickness of nearly a kilometre, although, in a temperate ablation season, its rate of retreat is a startling average of 21.4 metres a year (with yearly fluctuations which can reach up to 50 kilometres annually). The glacier itself is made up of three smaller glaciers which eventually converge. It then continues towards the Rhone valley, and transitions into the Massa River.

    Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/070915_Panorama_Aletschgletscher_von_Konkordiah%C3%BCtte.jpg

    REFERENCES
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1256/wea.191.03/pdf

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    Replies
    1. Oops, forgot to add one of my references: http://www.bettmeralp.ch/sites/en/bettmeralp/destination/grosser_aletschgletscher.html .

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  5. The Hubbard Glacier is located between Alaska and the Yukon Territory. This glacier is about 11,000 feet high, and originates 122 km from its snout. It is a tidewater/mountain glacier. In May, 1986, Hubbard surged forward, creating Russell Lake. All summer the lake filled with runoff water, increasing the water level by 25 meters. The glacier routinely calves off icebergs the size of ten story buildings!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbard_Glacier

    https://www.google.ca/search?q=hubbard+glacier&safe=off&client=safari&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=sR50UZC4FIivqAHE1YCYDw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=768&bih=928#biv=i%7C3%3Bd%7CTJHsjuZVNitxYM%3A

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  6. Perito Moreno Glacier. which is located in LosGlaciares National Park in Southwest Santacruz province, Argentina. It is one of the most tourist attraction in Argentine Patagonia. The sqq mile ice formation, and KM(19mi) in length, is one of 48 glaciers fed by the south western Patagonian Ice field located in the Andes system shared with chile. This ice field is the world's largest reserve of fresh water, the Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the only three Patagonian Glaciers that is growing. Covers 97 square miles (250 sq km) and measures 19 miles (30 km) in length.

    References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perito_Moreno_Glacier

    Gallery: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/6827686/The-Perito-Moreno-Glacier-in-Los-Glaciares-National-Park-Patagonia-Argentina.html

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  7. The Greenland ice sheet covers over 1.7 million square kilometres, nearly all of Greenland. The glacier melts at a rate of 239 cubic kilometres per year. The glacier is the second largest in the world, the largest being the one in Antarctica. If the entire ice sheet were to melt, then sea levels around the world would rise about 7.2 metres. The ice sheet is about 110,000 years old.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet

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  8. The Gorner Glacier is a valley glacier found on the west side of the Monte Rosa Massif close to Zermatt in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. I has a ablation rate of about 8 meters a year. the Glacier covers about 57 sq km. An interesting feature of this glacier is the Gornersee, an ice marginal lake at the confluence area of the Gorner- and Grenzgletscher. This lake fills every year and drains in summer, usually as a Glacial lake outburst flood. This is one of few glacial lakes in the Alps exhibiting this kind of behaviour. Along this glacier there is many boulders and crevasses.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorner_Glacier
    http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/specials/climate_change/research/Glaciers_continue_to_disappear.html?cid=33362

    VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D-aGVQONw4

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  9. The Jostedal Glacier is and alpine glacier, and is located in Western Norway. It covers 487 square km, and the thickest part of the glacier is 600 metres thick, and it is about 60 km in length. It is the biggest glacier in Northern Europe. This glacier is maintained by high amounts of snowfall, but not by low temperatures, and therefore has a higher melting rate. It has around 50 arms, and one of them, Briksdalsbreen, retreated by almost 150 metres in 2006.

    Picture: http://www.jostedal.com/img/senteret-front.jpg

    Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jostedalsbreen
    http://www.jostedal.com/index.htm


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  10. The Athabasca Glacier is an alpine glacier that is located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. This glacier is receding at rate of 2-3 meters per year. This the most visited glacier in North America. It is slowly creeping down the mountain at a rate of a few centimeters per day. This glacier has been receding for 125 years and during this time is has decreased in volume by about 50%. This glacier is very dangerous and people have died when falling in the crevasses.

    http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/ab/jasper/visit/visit32.aspx
    http://www.cbc.ca/geologic/field_guide/rck_athabasca.html

    picture: http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/01/83/e5/cb/athabasca-glacier.jpg

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  11. The Baltoro Glacier is an alpine valley glacier located in Northern Pakistan that runs through part of the Karakoram mountain range. This glacier is 62 km's long, making it one of the largest glaciers outside the polar regions. The trough of this glacier is very wide. Small valley glaciers form icefalls where they meet the trunk glacier. The sidewalls vary from very steep to precipitous. The glacier has carved striations on the surrounding country rocks. Moving ice has formed depressions, which serve as basins for numerous glacial lakes. The rate of ablation depends on which location you are measuring from. However it averages around 4 cm d-1.


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltoro_Glacier
    http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/igsoc/agl/2006/00000043/00000001/art00044
    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baltoro_glacier_from_air.jpg

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  12. The Franz Josef glacier is an alpine glacier found at the west coast of New Zealand's South Island. It's currently 12 km long, has an area of 37 square km and an estimated depth of almost 100 meters. The glacier retreated several km between the 1940s and 1980s, in 1984 it was actually moving 70 km a day at times, which is a massive rate by glacial standards. The glacier gets it's name from Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria. It's one of the largest tourist attractions at the West Coast of New Zealand, attracting around 250,000 tourists a year.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_Zealand_relief_map.jpg

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Glacier#Advance_and_retreat

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  13. Pasterze Glacier is located in Austria and the Eastern Alps, and it is an alpine glacier. It is the biggest glacier in Austria being 3453m high and 8 km in length. The ablation rate of this glacier is about 10m per year. It is also 2,100m above sea level.

    Photo:
    http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/4000/4549/pasterze_iko_2001276.jpg

    Sources:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasterze_Glacier

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