The Malaspina Glacier in southeastern Alaska is the largest piedmont glacier this far south in North America. It is about 65 km (40 mi) wide and 45 km (28 mi) long, with an area of some 3,900 km² (1,500 sq mi). It is named in 1874 by W.H. Dall of the Coast and Geodetic Survey in honor of Alessandro Malaspina, an Italian explorer of the Spanish Navy, who explored the region in 1791. Dall originally named the area Malaspina Plateau, not realizing i...
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The Malaspina Glacier in southeastern Alaska is the largest piedmont glacier this far south in North America. It is about 65 km (40 mi) wide and 45 km (28 mi) long, with an area of some 3,900 km² (1,500 sq mi). It is named in 1874 by W.H. Dall of the Coast and Geodetic Survey in honor of Alessandro Malaspina, an Italian explorer of the Spanish Navy, who explored the region in 1791. Dall originally named the area Malaspina Plateau, not realizing its true character.
It forms where several valley glaciers, primarily the Seward Glacier and Agassiz Glacier, spill out from the Saint Elias Mountains onto the coastal plain facing the Gulf of Alaska between Icy Bay and Yakutat Bay. Although it fills the plain, nowhere does it actually reach the water and so does not qualify as a tidewater glacier.
The Malaspina is up to 600 meters thick in places, with a bottom estimated at up to 300 meters below sea level. There are two lakes on the margin of the glacier; Oily Lake at the foot of the Samovar...
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