Collapse of 4Mm3 of ice from a cirque glacier in the Central Andes of Argentina

FRANK PAUL; LUIS EDUARDO LENZANO; DANIEL FALASCHI; TAKEO TADONO; ANDREAS KÄÄN; JUAN ANTONIO RIVERA

The Cryosphere

Copernicus Publications

Año: 2019 vol. 13

1994-0416

Among glacier instabilities, collapses of largeparts of low-angle glaciers are a striking, exceptional phenomenon.So far, merely the 2002 collapse of Kolka Glacierin the Caucasus Mountains and the 2016 twin detachments ofthe Aru glaciers in western Tibet have been well documented.Here we report on the previously unnoticed collapse of anunnamed cirque glacier in the Central Andes of Argentinain March 2007. Although of much smaller ice volume, this4:20:6106 m3 collapse in the Andes is similar to theCaucasus and Tibet ones in that the resulting ice avalanchetravelled a total distance of 2 km over a surprisingly lowangle of reach ( 5).