Sif 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 ...
in northern
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...
.
Administratively it belongs to the
Northeast Greenland National Park
Northeast Greenland National Park (, ) is the world's largest national park and the 10th largest protected area (the only larger protected areas consist mostly of sea). Established in 1974, the Northeast Greenland national park expanded to its p ...
.
History
The Sif Glacier was seen during aerial surveys by
Lauge Koch
Lauge Koch (5 July 1892 – 5 June 1964) was a Danish geologist and Arctic explorer.
Biography
Lauge Koch was born in 1892 to Karl and Elisabeth Koch. His development as a scientist was greatly influenced by his father's second cousin Johan Peter ...
and was named after
Sif
In Norse mythology, Sif is a golden-haired goddess associated with earth. Sif is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the ''Prose Edda'', written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturl ...
, the goddess representing
Mother Earth in
Norse mythology
Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...
.
The glacier was first explored from the ground by the
British Joint Services
The United Kingdom's Strategic Command (StratCom), previously known as Joint Forces Command (JFC), manages allocated joint capabilities from the three armed services.
History
Background
In August 2010 the then Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, ask ...
Expedition in 1969.
Geography
The Sif Glacier is a slow-moving glacier located in
Johannes V. Jensen Land, roughly in the middle of the
Roosevelt Range
The Roosevelt Range or Roosevelt Mountains () is a mountain range in Northern Greenland. Administratively this range is part of the Northeast Greenland National Park. Its highest peak is the highest point in Peary Land.
Located about from the N ...
. It flows in a WSW/ENE direction from the
ice cap
In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets.
Description
By definition, ice caps are not constrained by topogra ...
of the
Mary Peary Peaks, bifurcating south of the
Birgit Koch Peaks with one arm flowing roughly northwards and another southwards until their
terminuses in the Northern and in the Southern
Tvillingesø (Twin Lakes) respectively.
[Arctic Report, 121](_blank)
/ref>
The northern branch of the Sif Glacier ends in a valley open to the north with its mouth in Constable Bay, where it formed prominent terminal moraines
A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris ( regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice sh ...
in the past.[The terminal moraine in Constable Bugt](_blank)
/ref>
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), ...
*Peary Land
Peary Land is a peninsula in northern Greenland, extending into the Arctic Ocean. It reaches from Victoria Fjord in the west to Independence Fjord in the south and southeast, and to the Arctic Ocean in the north, with Cape Morris Jesup, the nor ...
References
External links
Early to middle Holocene valley glaciations on northernmost Greenland The terminal moraine in Constable BugtGreenland North Coast - Jeff Shea
Glaciers of Greenland
Roosevelt Range
{{Greenland-glacier-stub