Tyndall Glacier (Alaska)
| Tyndall Glacier | ||
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.jpg) Tyndall Glacier in 2015 |
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| location | Alaska ( USA ) | |
| Mountains | Elias chain | |
| Type | Valley glacier | |
| length | 22 km | |
| Exposure | South southwest | |
| Altitude range | 2400 m - 0 m | |
| width | ⌀ 1.6 km | |
| Coordinates | 60 ° 13 ′ N , 141 ° 7 ′ W | |
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| drainage | Taan Fjord → Icy Bay ( Pacific Ocean ) | |
| particularities | Tidal glaciers | |
The Tyndall Glacier is a 22 km long glacier in the US state of Alaska . It is located in the Wrangell St. Elias National Park about 110 km northwest of the settlement of Yakutat .
geography
The Tyndall Glacier has its nutrient area on the southwest flank of Mount Saint Elias at an altitude of 2400 m . From there, the glacier, which is 1.6 km wide on average, flows south-south-west to the Taan Fjord , which opens up to Icy Bay .
Naming
The glacier was named after John Tyndall (1820-1893), a British physicist, natural philosopher and glaciologist.
Glacier retreat
In 1961, the Tyndall Glacier filled the Taan Fjord. The rapidly advancing warming of the following decades led the glacier to retreat by 17 km, its ice became 400 m thinner (→ glacier retreat since 1850 ). In 1991, glacier retreat came to a temporary halt at a shallow narrowing of the rock at the upper end of the fjord.
Glacier ice and permafrost stabilize mountain slopes. The retreat of the glacier leads, on the one hand, to a destabilization of the slopes and makes it more likely that large masses of rock will slide, on the other hand, larger bodies of water form at the end of the glacier. This is especially true for glacial coasts like Alaska. On October 17, 2015, a massive landslide occurred at the end of the Tyndall Glacier (→ landslide in Icy Bay ). About 180 million tons of material went into the fjord at a speed of up to 162 km / h. The rock masses moved several kilometers along the fjord. The landslide triggered a megatsunami , which reached a run-up height of approx. 193 m on the opposite side of the valley. At the mouth of the 17 km long fjord the water wave was still 15 m high.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Tyndall Glacier in the United States Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System
- ↑ Bretwood Higman et al. a .: The 2015 landslide and tsunami in Taan Fiord, Alaska . In: Scientific Reports . No. 12993 , September 6, 2018, doi : 10.1038 / s41598-018-30475-w .