Glacier Lake 66N, 50W / West Greenland

[Tealight]

Near the icecaps in West Greenland is a glacier lake without any visible surface outflow.

This lake has one of the biggest icebergs of any lake in the world. The biggest I have measured calved in 2016 and was 1km long, 200m wide and 120m in height. The height is estimated from an image in 2017 after the iceberg turned over. Other icebergs in the lake are similar in size, several reaching 300-600m in length. The whole front of the glacier retreated over 100m from August 2016 until August 2017.

The lake itself is 15 km W-E, 10.5 km N-S and at least 120m deep (otherwise the icebergs can't turn over). According to Google Earth and Greenland Bedrock Map the lake is at 800m above sea level. Maybe it has an outflow beneath a glacier, but I can't say under which one, the bedrock data isn't accurate enough. It should be a good place to study non-ocean terminating glaciers. If the ice sheet retreats further inland it might expose more lakes, which don't have warm ocean water to melt the glaciers from beneath and can't transport icebergs away.

On Google Earth/Maps this lake doesn't even exist and just shows as white snow unless you zoom really close. I'm not sure if it has a name, but feel free to reference it or any of the glaciers terminating in it.

The actual center of the lake is 66N, 55.15W, but in a few years it will melt the ice sheet and reach 50W.

[Espen]

Interesting and nice spotting, I have tried via several maps to find a name for this lake, but with no result.

[P-maker]

Tealight and Espen

Bice topic this one. I believe this glacer lake is the same as the one investigated briefly by the then Geological Survey of Greenland (now GEUS) in the 1980íes under the label name "Sø 860" indicatimg that the lake surface was around 860 masl. at som stage when a map was drawn.

In those days, the lake surface was covered by lake ice most years, but now it appears to have become ice free most years.

[Espen]

Tealight and Espen

Bice topic this one. I believe this glacer lake is the same as the one investigated briefly by the then Geological Survey of Greenland (now GEUS) in the 1980íes under the label name "Sø 860" indicatimg that the lake surface was around 860 masl. at som stage when a map was drawn.

In those days, the lake surface was covered by lake ice most years, but now it appears to have become ice free most years.

And I can add to this there is no name for lake in the GEUSs maps I have, but the maps says between 800 - 900 masl.

[Tealight]

Where exactly did you find "Sø 860"? I also couldn't find a name on GEUSs maps / website and if it is nowhere mentioned than aren't we are free to propose a name?

How about "Lake Espen" 

In honor of his continuous year-long coverage of Greenland's glaciers. It's fitting for the lake with the biggest icebergs in the world. We are legitimate explorers and document our observation for other people to use.

[Espen]

Where exactly did you find "Sø 860"? I also couldn't find a name on GEUSs maps / website and if it is nowhere mentioned than aren't we are free to propose a name?

I am afraid there is an anti western (danish) atmosphere in Greenland, so anything that rhimes with danish is a no-go. And since this is a pretty southern destination it will never work, you can get away with it much further north, beyond the rule of "selvstyret" and the interest of the fat cats in Nuuk.

[Tealight]

I am afraid there is an anti western (danish) atmosphere in Greenland, so anything that rhimes with danish is a no-go.

I don't think Greenland will develop well with only Greenlandic as a language. With only 50-60 thousand speakers it is far too uncommon and under developed for modern life and new high-tech technologies. Even Danish with 5 million native speakers is quite small.

As a free economic advise I encourage them to accept English and attract more foreign investors 

[Tealight]

In my first post I speculated that the calved iceberg (1000m x 200m x 120m, around 0.2 km² surface area) is the biggest lake iceberg in the world. After a Google Earth tour over most large Glaciers with lakes it turns out that my mentioned iceberg is by far not the biggest. It might be in the top league, but others are significantly larger.

Here is my top four:


1. Harlequin_lake (Alaska): 59.5N, 138.85W
2016-07-17 (already broke up into smaller pieces, which are still bigger than 0.2 km² )
3935*1248m; 2.3818 km2


2. South Greenland: 61.2N, 45W
2017-09-09 (broke up too)
1245*953m; 0.876 km2


3. North Greenland: 82.1N, 39W
2017-07-30
860*690m; 0.613 km2


4. East Greenland: 76.95N, 24.3W
2017-08-01
1545*370m; 0.374 km2