Tyndall Glacier is a
valley
A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...
/
tidewater
Tidewater may refer to:
* Tidewater (region), a geographic area of southeast Virginia, southern Maryland, and northeast North Carolina.
** Tidewater accent, an accent of American English associated with the Tidewater region of Virginia
* Tidewater ...
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 ...
in the
U.S. state of
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...
. The glacier lies immediately west of
141° West longitude, within the boundaries of the
Wrangell–Saint Elias Wilderness, itself part of
Wrangell–St. Elias National Park & Preserve, in the
borough
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle Ag ...
of
Yakutat, Alaska.
Named for
John Tyndall
John Tyndall FRS (; 2 August 1820 – 4 December 1893) was a prominent 19th-century Irish physicist. His scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he made discoveries in the realms of infrared radiation and the p ...
(a 19th-century
Irish physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
,
natural philosopher, and
glaciologist), Tyndall Glacier originates in the basin formed by the southwestern face of
Mount Saint Elias (the second-tallest mountain in the United States and the fourth-tallest in North America), as well as
Mount Huxley,
The Hump
The Hump was the name given by Allied pilots in the Second World War to the eastern end of the Himalayan Mountains over which they flew military transport aircraft from India to China to resupply the Chinese war effort of Chiang Kai-shek and t ...
, and
Haydon Peak in the
Saint Elias Mountains
The Saint Elias Mountains (french: Chaîne Saint-Élie) are a subgroup of the Pacific Coast Ranges, located in southeastern Alaska in the United States, Southwestern Yukon and the very far northwestern part of British Columbia in Canada. The range ...
. From there it extends 19 kilometers, trending southwest and terminating in
Taan Fjord, an arm of
Icy Bay. Together with the
Yahtse and
Guyot glaciers, it once occupied the entirety of Icy Bay; as the glaciers have retreated the bay has opened up.
Tyndall Glacier is sometimes used as a landing area for
bush plane
A bush airplane is a general aviation aircraft used to provide both scheduled and unscheduled passenger and flight services to remote, undeveloped areas, such as the Canadian north or bush, Alaskan tundra, the African bush, or savanna, Amazon ra ...
s by parties seeking to climb Mount Saint Elias, as it was during the first winter ascent of the peak.
History
Tyndall Glacier first started to advance out of Taan Fjord around AD 1400, and reached its
Little Ice Age
The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...
maximum length at the mouth of Icy Bay at some point prior to 1794, when
George Vancouver
Captain George Vancouver (22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a British Royal Navy officer best known for his 1791–1795 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what a ...
mapped the ice extending out from Icy Bay.
Tyndall Glacier then began to retreat in 1905. Between 1938 and 1961, Tyndall Glacier's terminus—where the glacier ends and calves into the fjord—retreated approximately , until it separated from Guyot Glacier in Icy Bay around 1961.
After that, the Tyndall Glacier then retreated approximately another between 1961 and 1991. According to a 2006 study, in the previous 40 years the glacier lost approximately half of its 1961 volume (equivalent to 3.19 × 10
10 m
3) and the glacier's thickness decreased by over 300 meters at its terminus.
Since 1991, the glacier's retreat has stabilized, with a terminus at a "shallow bedrock constriction at the head of the fjord," called Hoof Hill.
Mountaineer and explorer
Bradford Washburn noted in 1992 that the glacier's retreat has meant that the summit of Mount Saint Elias is only twelve miles from tidewater, exacerbating the peak's immense vertical
relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
.
2015 landslide and megatsunami
Tyndall Glacier and Icy Bay are notable for being the site of an enormous
landslide
Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated grade (slope), slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of ...
and subsequent
megatsunami in 2015.
Gallery
See also
*
Malaspina Glacier
__NOTOC__
The Malaspina Glacier (Lingít: ''Sít' Tlein'') in southeastern Alaska is the largest piedmont glacier in the world. Situated at the head of the Alaska Panhandle, it is about wide and long, with an area of some . Name
The Lingít na ...
(a nearby
piedmont glacier
Glacier morphology, or the form a glacier takes, is influenced by temperature, precipitation, topography, and other factors. The goal of glacial morphology is to gain a better understanding of glaciated landscapes and the way they are shaped. Ty ...
and the largest such in the world)
*
List of glaciers
A glacier ( ) or () is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight; it forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation (melting and sublimation) over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform ...
**
List of glaciers in the United States
This is a list of glaciers existing in the United States, currently or in recent centuries. These glaciers are located in nine states, all in the Rocky Mountains or farther west. The southernmost named glacier among them is the Lilliput Glacier ...
References
Glaciers of Alaska
Glaciers of Yakutat City and Borough, Alaska
{{Alaska-glacier-stub