Pluto 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
Alexander Island
Alexander Island, which is also known as Alexander I Island, Alexander I Land, Alexander Land, Alexander I Archipelago, and Zemlja Alexandra I, is the largest island of Antarctica. It lies in the Bellingshausen Sea west of Palmer Land, Antarcti ...
,
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...
, 10 nautical miles (18 km) long and 4 nautical miles (7 km) wide, which flows east into
George VI Sound
George VI Sound or Canal Jorge VI or Canal Presidente Sarmiento or Canal Seaver or King George VI Sound or King George the Sixth Sound is a major bay/ fault depression, 300 miles (483 km) long and mainly covered by a permanent ice shelf. I ...
to the north of
Succession Cliffs. Although Pluto Glacier is not located within nearby
Planet Heights
Planet Heights () is a series of summits running along an ice-free ridge, extending 24 nautical miles (44 km) in a north-south direction between the southernmost extremity of the LeMay Range and George VI Sound in the east part of Alexander I ...
, the glacier was named in association with the mountain range along with many other nearby glaciers that are named after planets of the
Solar System
The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...
. The glacier was first photographed from the air on November 23, 1935, by
Lincoln Ellsworth
Lincoln Ellsworth (May 12, 1880 – May 26, 1951) was an American polar explorer, engineer, surveyor, and author. He led the first Arctic and Antarctic air crossings.
Early life
Linn Ellsworth was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 12, 1880. His ...
and mapped from these photos by
W.L.G. Joerg Wolfgang Louis Gottfried Joerg, better known as W. L. G. Joerg (February 6, 1885 – January 7, 1952), was an American geographer, and in particular an expert in the geography of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, who exercised broad influence on the ...
. Roughly surveyed in 1936 by the
British Graham Land Expedition (BGLE). Named by the
United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee
The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) and ...
(UK-APC) for
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Su ...
, then considered the ninth (and last) planet of the Solar System, following
Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey
The Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE) was an aerial survey of the Falkland Islands Dependencies
The Falkland Islands Dependencies was the constitutional arrangement from 1843 until 1985 for administering the v ...
(FIDS) surveys in 1948 and 1949.
See also
*
List of glaciers in the Antarctic
There are many glaciers in the Antarctic. This set of lists does not include ice sheets, ice caps or ice fields, such as the Antarctic ice sheet, but includes glacial features that are defined by their flow, rather than general bodies of ice ...
*
Jupiter Glacier
Jupiter Glacier () is a glacier on the east coast of Alexander Island, Antarctica, long and wide at its mouth, which flows east into George VI Sound to the south of Ablation Valley. It was first photographed from the air on November 23, 1935, ...
*
Uranus Glacier
Uranus Glacier () is a glacier on the east coast of Alexander Island, Antarctica, long and wide at its mouth, flowing east into George VI Sound immediately south of Fossil Bluff. Along the south face of the glacier is an east–west escarpment c ...
*
Neptune Glacier
Neptune Glacier () is a glacier on the east coast of Alexander Island, Antarctica, 12 nautical miles (22 km) long and 4 nautical miles (7 km) wide, flowing east into George VI Sound and the George VI Ice Shelf to the south of Triton Po ...
Further reading
* RILEY, T., FLOWERDEW, M., & WHITEHOUSE, M. (2012),
Chrono- and lithostratigraphy of a Mesozoic–Tertiary fore- to intra-arc basin: Adelaide Island, Antarctic Peninsula', Geological Magazine, 149(5), 768–782. doi:10.1017/S0016756811001002
* Jane G. Ferrigno, Alison J. Cook, Amy M. Mathie, Richard S. Williams, Jr., Charles Swithinbank, Kevin M. Foley, Adrian J. Fox, Janet W. Thomson, and Jörn Sievers,
Coastal-Change and Glaciological Map of the Palmer Land Area, Antarctica: 1947–2009', U.S. Geological Survey Geologic Investigations Series Map I–2600–C, 1 map sheet, 28-p
* Sven Brysch, '
Changes in climate and palaeoenvironment during the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous in southern South America and western Antarctica'', Heidelberg, 2018
External links
Pluto Glacieron
USGS
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...
website
Pluto Glacieron
SCAR
A scar (or scar tissue) is an area of fibrosis, fibrous tissue that replaces normal skin after an injury. Scars result from the biological process of wound repair in the skin, as well as in other Organ (anatomy), organs, and biological tissue, t ...
website
Pluto Glacieron mindat.org
References
Glaciers of Alexander Island
{{AlexanderIsland-glacier-stub