Kronborg Glacier () is a
glacier
A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...
on the east coast of the
Greenland ice sheet
The Greenland ice sheet is an ice sheet which forms the second largest body of ice in the world. It is an average of thick and over thick at its maximum. It is almost long in a north–south direction, with a maximum width of at a latitude ...
.
It is named after
Kronborg
Kronborg is a castle and historical stronghold in the town of Helsingør, Denmark. Immortalised as Elsinore in William Shakespeare's play ''Hamlet'', Kronborg is one of the most important Renaissance castles in Northern Europe. It was inscribed ...
Castle in
Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
. Administratively this glacier is part of the
Sermersooq
Sermersooq () is a municipality in Greenland, formed on 1 January 2009 from five previous, smaller municipalities. Its administrative seat is the city of Nuuk (formerly called Godthåb), the capital of Greenland, and it is the most populous ...
Municipality.
Google Earth
Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...
The area surrounding the Kronborg Glacier is remote and uninhabited.
History
In 1962, a
VP-5
Patrol Squadron FIVE (VP-5) is a long-lived maritime patrol squadron of the United States Navy. It is the second squadron to bear the VP-5 designation. VP-5 is the second oldest patrol squadron, the fourth oldest in the United States Navy, and ...
Lockheed P-2 Neptune
The Lockheed P-2 Neptune (designated P2V by the United States Navy prior to September 1962) is a Maritime patrol aircraft, maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft. It was developed for the US Navy by Lockheed Corporation, Lockh ...
on a routine patrol mission crashed into the slope of the Kronborg Glacier in unknown circumstances, killing all twelve men aboard. The place where the plane had crashed was finally discovered in 1966 when four geologists found the remains, but it was not until 2004 that the
US Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
recovered all the crew remains and memorialized the deceased at the crash site.
Geography
The Kronborg Glacier is a non-surge type
valley 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. T ...
that does not drain the
Greenland ice sheet
The Greenland ice sheet is an ice sheet which forms the second largest body of ice in the world. It is an average of thick and over thick at its maximum. It is almost long in a north–south direction, with a maximum width of at a latitude ...
directly, but flows partly from it across mountainous areas in a roughly north–south direction. It separates the
Ejnar Mikkelsen Range in the west from the
Borgtinderne in the east. Further south it separates the
Watkins Range and the
Lilloise Range in the west from the
Wiedemann Range in the east,
until its terminus at the head of the
Ravn Fjord in the East Greenland coast.
[''Prostar Sailing Directions 2005 Greenland and Iceland Enroute'', p. 110]
A fast-flowing glacier, it is similar in structure to the neighbouring
Christian IV Glacier. The
Rosenborg Glacier is a smaller glacier flowing between both.
[Brooks, C.K. ''Geomorphological Observations at Kangerdlugssuaq, East Greenland'', Greenland Geoscience, Vol 1, 1979 p. 16]
See also
*
List of glaciers in Greenland
This is a list of glaciers in Greenland. Details on the size and flow of some of the major Greenlandic glaciers are listed by Eric Rignot and Pannir Kanagaratnam (2006)
Ice sheets and caps
*Greenland Ice Sheet
*Ad Astra Ice Cap (Greenland), ...
Further reading
*Spencer Apollonio, ''Lands That Hold One Spellbound: A Story of East Greenland'', 2008
References
External links
*
VP-5 Memorial Current Recovery Attempt*
Glaciers of Greenland
Kronborg
{{Greenland-glacier-stub