Malaspina glacier

The glacier Malaspina is a glacier of Piedmont which is in Alaska.

It with the characteristic to present one of largest the glacial Lobe not confined of the world. This lobe is spread out in the Sandur over 38 kilometers length, 32 kilometers broad and 3 900 km ².

It draws its name from the explorer Alessandro Malaspina who visited the area in 1791.

Malaspina is born from the meeting of several glaciers of valley (Glacier Seward, Glacier Agassiz, etc) which go down from the Holy Mont Elias in the coastal plain of the Golfe of Alaska between Icy Bay and bay of Yakutat but without joining the sea.

Its thickness reaches by place 600 meters and its bottom can go down to 300 meters under the sea level. Two lakes were formed in edge of the glacier : Oily Lake with the foot of the hills of Samovar enters the glaciers Agassiz and Seward and the lake Malaspina to South-east, close to bay of Yakutat.

Analyzes by radar and air photographs showed that the glacier lost twenty meters thickness between 1980 and 2000. The volume of ice is so important that the total cast iron of the glacier will contribute to 0,5% of the rise of the sea level by the cast iron of the ices.

Malaspina is included in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and belonged to the “National Natural Landmark” which preserves the geological and ecological witnesses the United States.

A ferry of the company “Alaska Marine Highway” bears the same name as the glacier : " M/V Malaspina".

External bond

the site of the park " Wrangell-St.Elias"

reference

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