Unteraar Glacier

Caspar Wolf :
The Lauteraar Glacier , 1776

Unteraar Glacier. Aerial view from the east

Joseph Bettannier : Glacier inférieur de l'Aar . In: Louis Agassiz: Études sur les glaciers , 1840

Oberaar glacier (left) and Unteraar glacier (right), in the foreground the dark blue Trübenensee

The Unteraar Glacier is the larger of the two source glaciers of the Aare in the Bernese Oberland . It arises from the union of the Finsteraar Glacier and the Lauteraar Glacier ( see Aar Glacier ) at the so-called downswing and flows about 6 km in an easterly direction down to the Grimselsee in the uppermost Haslital .

Today's Unteraar Glacier and especially its clean northern inlet, the Lauteraar Glacier (“Klarer Aare Glacier”) was one of the sights of Switzerland in the Baroque period and, since 1827, the first research object of the newly emerging glacier research or glaciology . Worked here Franz Joseph Hugi and 1840 Louis Agassiz .

The illustration by Joseph Bettannier shows that the Unteraar Glacier had its central moraine as early as 1840, which was unsightly for tourists, but highly interesting for researchers.

The large boulder that Caspar Wolf painted in 1775 or 1776 was also located on the Unteraar Glacier , which from 1840 served as the “Hotel des Neuchatelois” as a shelter for researchers and has now disappeared in Lake Grimsel.

The edge of the Unteraar glacier was 560 m lower in the 19th century and is still around 400 m lower than that of the Oberaar glacier today .

literature

• S .: On firn and ice . In: The Gazebo . Volume 34, 1864, pp. 532-536 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Unteraargletscher  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Unteraargletscher on Glaciers online
• Virtual excursion to the Unteraar Glacier
• Research Institute for Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW) of the ETH Zurich (publisher): Unteraargletscher. In: Swiss Glacier Measurement Network. ( ethz.ch , also as PDF ).
• Viatimages . University of Lausanne / Swiss National Library
  • Carte du Glacier inférieur de l'Aar, levée en 1842, d'après les directions de m.Agassiz par Jean Wild, Ingénieur (Neuchâtel Public and University Library, cote: IGH Txt 129.6.3)
  • Réseau trigonométrique de la carte du glacier inférieur de l'Aar (1847) (Neuchâtel Public and University Library, cote: IGH Txt 129.6.3)
  • Carte du glacier inférieur de l'Aar (1844) (Neuchâtel Public and University Library, cote: BPUN Q 820 A)
• The Aar glaciers in the Topographic Atlas of Switzerland from 1870–1922

Individual evidence

1. ^ Profile of the painting "The Lauteraar Glacier" at the Basel Art Museum
2. ↑ Louis Agassiz: Ètudes sur les glaciers (Glacier Studies ), Appendix: Explication des planches (explanation of the images). Planche 14: Glacier inférieur de l'Aar, partie supérieure, avec la cabane de M. Hugi (Unteraar glacier, upper section with the hut Mr. Hugis)

Coordinates: 46 ° 34 '  N , 8 ° 13'  E ; CH1903:  659843  /  157377