Sérac (glacier phenomenon)

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Glacier ice forms bizarre shapes

Séracs are towers made of glacier ice that form at the edges of the steep slopes of glaciers . They can also arise when the glaciers surge (that is, flow faster than normal) or at the glacial termini of tidal glaciers .

They arise from the interaction of longitudinal and transverse expansion and therefore usually occur together with or close to longitudinal and transverse gaps.

Séracs can reach heights of more than 200 m in the highest mountains of the Himalayas . When mountaineers are feared because they can collapse unexpectedly.

A classic example of an endangered by Séracs route is the Südanstieg through the Khumbu - icefall on the south side of Mount Everest . On this route through the icefall measuring 600 meters in altitude, around 20 people have already been killed by crevasses and collapsing séracs.

The name "Sérac" was coined by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure in 1779 and is derived from the cheese of the same name .

Web links

Commons : Seracs  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Alexander Stahr, Thomas Hartmann: Landscapes and landscape elements in the high mountains . Springer, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-540-65278-7 , pp. 228 ( Google Books [accessed September 12, 2009]).