John Hopkins Glacier Up Close
by D Hackett
Title
John Hopkins Glacier Up Close
Artist
D Hackett
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Original 35 mm film/photograph scanned to digital image and restored.
Johns Hopkins Glacier continues to advance with Gilman Glacier as a single ice front. The glacier is about 1- mile wide, 250 feet high at the terminus, and 200 feet deep at the water line. It is formed from numerous tributary glaciers, many of which extend 12 or more miles into the surrounding peaks.
The glacier flows down the main valley at about 3,000 feet per year, or about 8 feet per day, according to observations made in the late 1970s by S. Brown and others. Ice flow rates have not been measured recently. However, Field, Post, Brown, Lawson and others have observed rapid calving and continued ice advance, which suggests little change in flow has occurred since Johns Hopkins began advancing in 1924, about the same time that Grand Pacific Glacier began advancing into Tarr Inlet. Ice flow and terminus advance rates appear to have fluctuated over the last several or more years.
Johns Hopkins joined Gilman Glacier at its eastern edge in about 1990. During the decade following this merging of the ice, the two glaciers have separated and joined several times. The two glaciers were once again attached at the eastern edge of Johns Hopkins in 2000 and both are now advancing slowly with a 150 to 200 foot steep ice face where they join. Of note, Johns Hopkins is characterized by submarinecalving -calving below the water surface caused by breaking off of ice from an ice foot that extends from the basal part of the glacier. These basal bergs rise suddenly and unexpectedly, emerging, sometimes explosively, without warning at the water surface.
Uploaded
September 15th, 2013
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