Devon_Ice_Cap

Devon Ice Cap

Devon Ice Cap

Ice cap in Nunavut, Canada

The Devon Ice Cap is an ice cap on eastern Devon Island, Nunavut, Canada, covering an area of over 12,000 km2 (4,600 sq mi). The highest point on Devon Island is found at the summit of the ice cap, with an elevation of 1,921 m (6,302 ft). The ice cap has a maximum thickness of 880 m (2,887 ft),[2] and has been steadily shrinking since 1985.[3]

Quick Facts Highest point, Elevation ...

The first ascent of the Devon Ice Cap was by Alfred Herbert Joy and his Inuit companions in 1926.[2]

Geology

The Devon Ice Cap and the Agassiz Ice Cap on the neighboring Ellesmere Island are two of the largest ice caps in the Arctic Cordillera in the Canadian Arctic, and consist of a substantial fraction of ice not locked away in the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.[4] As such, should the entire Devon Ice Cap melt due to global warming, the ice will contribute approximately 1 centimeter to global sea level rise.[4]

The Devon Ice Cap has a dome-like structure and a maximum elevation of 1921 m above sea level at its summit, and the maximum ice thickness is 880 m.[2] There are two distinct regions in the Devon Ice Cap: a 12,050 km2 (4,650 sq mi) ice cap and a 1,960 km2 (760 sq mi) ice-covered region in the west that is geologically inactive.[4] Beneath the ice, two hypersaline subglacial lakes have been identified via RES in bedrock troughs.[5] Subglacial valleys have also been found, and such structures are thought to control the outflow of ice.[4]

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut Ultra-Prominences". Peaklist.org. Retrieved 2012-12-28.
  2. [2]
    "Devon Ice Cap". Bivouac.com.
  3. [3]
    "Massive Arctic Ice Cap Is Shrinking, Study Shows; Rate Accelerating Since 1985". ScienceDaily.com. Retrieved 2012-12-28.
  4. [4]
    Dowdeswell, J.A.; Benham, T.J.; Gorman, M.R.; Burgess, D.; Sharp, M.J. (2004). "Form and flow of the Devon Island Ice Cap, Canadian Arctic". Journal of Geophysical Research. 109 (F02202): n/a. Bibcode:2004JGRF..109.2002D. doi:10.1029/2003JF000095.
  5. [5]
    Rutishauser, Anja; Blankenship, Donald D; Sharp, Martin; Skidmore, Mark L; Greenbaum, Jamin S; Grima, Cyril; Schroeder, Dustin M; Dowdeswell, Julian A; Young, Duncan A (April 2018). "Discovery of a hypersaline subglacial lake complex beneath Devon Ice Cap, Canadian Arctic". Science Advances. 4 (4): eaar4353. Bibcode:2018SciA....4.4353R. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aar4353. PMC 5895444. PMID 29651462.
Stub icon

This Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Stub icon

This article about a glacier in Canada is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Devon_Ice_Cap, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.