Steller glacier
| Steller glacier | ||
|---|---|---|
| location | Alaska (USA) | |
| Mountains | Chugach Mountains | |
| Type | Valley glacier | |
| length | 56 km | |
| Exposure | southwest | |
| Altitude range | 1500 m - 132 m | |
| width | ⌀ 3.6 km | |
| Coordinates | 60 ° 25 ′ N , 143 ° 36 ′ W | |
|
||
| drainage | Gandil River → Bering River → Gulf of Alaska | |
| particularities | Glacier edge lake | |
The Steller Glacier is a 56 km long glacier in the US state of Alaska , 115 km east of Cordova .
geography
The 1500 m high nutrient area of the glacier is to the northwest of Mount Steller at the western end of the Bagley Icefield . The glacier, which is about 3.6 km wide on average, flows in a south-westerly direction through the Chugach Mountains and ends 25 km from the Pacific coast. Several glacial lakes have formed below its glacier tongue , including Berg Lake . The lakes are drained towards the Pacific.
Glacier development
The Steller Glacier used to be a tribute glacier to the Bering Glacier to the east . However, the retreat of the glaciers separated them from one another.
Naming
The glacier name, which has been valid since 1950, is derived from the nearby Mount Steller, which was named after Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709–1746), a naturalist and participant in the Second Kamchatka Expedition led by Vitus Bering , during which Steller off the Alaska coast in 1741 island Kayak Iceland visited.