During most of the two-year span of the video, the ice is moving at a pretty good clip,about 50 to 80 feet (15 to 24 meters) a day. The cracks and fissures that you see running sideways across the glacier are crevasses formed when the ice stretches and breaks in its effort to keep up with the accelerating downward pace. Transverse crevasses like these are an indicator of ice being stretched along the flow direction. The dark curvy stripes that run along the sides of the glacier are medial moraines—channels of debris left behind where branch glaciers joined the main glacier in its flow.
The Extreme Ice Survey is honored to feature our own layer with photos and time-lapse videos on Google Earth. Click here for more information on Google Earth and how to view our layer.
