Brüggen Glacier, also known as Pío XI Glacier, is in southern

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

and is the largest western outflow from the

Southern Patagonian Ice Field The Southern Patagonian Ice Field ( es, Hielo Continental or '), located at the Southern Patagonic Andes between Chile and Argentina, is the world's second largest contiguous extrapolar ice field. It is the bigger of two remnant parts of the Pat ...

. Now about in length, it is the longest glacier in the southern hemisphere outside Antarctica.In the northern hemisphere, Tajikistan's

Fedchenko Glacier The Fedchenko Glacier (russian: Ледник Федченко; tg, Пиряхи Федченко) is a large glacier in the Yazgulem Range, Pamir Mountains, of north-central Gorno-Badakhshan province, Tajikistan. The glacier is long and narrow, ...

is 77 km long. In the Karakoram Mountains,

Siachen Glacier The Siachen Glacier is a glacier located in the eastern Karakoram range in the Himalayas at about , just northeast of the point NJ9842 where the Line of Control between India and Pakistan ends. At long, it is the longest glacier in the Kar ...

is 76 km long,

Biafo Glacier The Biafo Glacier ( ur, ) is a -long glacier situated in the Karakoram mountain range in Shigar district, Gilgit−Baltistan, Pakistan. Geography Biafo Glacier meets the -long Hispar Glacier at an altitude of at Hispar La to create the worl ...

is 67 km long, Baltoro is 63 km long, and Baltura is 57 km long. Kyrgyzstan's South Inylchek (Enylchek) Glacier is 60.5 km in length. None in the southern hemisphere outside of Antarctica and Bruggen Glacier approach this length. Measurements are from recent imagery, generally also with Russian 1:200,000 scale topographic mapping for reference as well as the 1990 ''Orographic Sketch Map: Karakoram: Sheets 1 and 2'', Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, Zurich. Unlike most

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

s worldwide, it advanced significantly from 1945 to 1976, Brüggen surged across the

Eyre Fjord Eyre Fjord is a fjord in Chile. It extends for 20 miles north from its mouth to its terminus at Pío XI Glacier, and is located at .Lake Greve Greve Lake ( es, Lago Greve) is an ice dammed lake in Chile formed by the advance of Brüggen Glacier. It is fed by several glaciers. Lautaro Lautaro (Anglicized as 'Levtaru') ( arn, Lef-Traru " swift hawk") (; 1534? – April 29, 1557) was ...

from the sea. The glacier continued advancing both northward and southward in the

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Ice ...

to near its present position before stabilizing. The growth covers a distance of more than north to south, adding nearly of ice. The glacier is named after the German geologist

Juan Brüggen Messtorff ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...

References

External links

See Figure 55 in this USGS study for a map and discussion of the glacier's advances and retreats
*

Photos of Pío XI Glacier on Flickr

Glaciers of Magallanes Region {{Chile-glacier-stub

See also

References

External links