Glacier of Arsine

The glacier of Arsine is a Glacier the French Alps being in the Massif Jewel cases, in the department of the Hautes-Alpes.

The glacier is located in the National park of the Jewel cases, with the hollow of a circus framed by the Pic of the Lambs, the peak of Snow Rope-maker and the Pic of Arsine and dominating the collar of Arsine, the small valley of the front of the Board and the small valley of Small Tabuc.

The glacier of Arsine is a glacier of circus 1,7 kilometers length and located between 2 450 meters and 3 600 meters of altitude (2003).

The characteristic of the glacier of Arsine, and what makes its success near the hikers, is the presence of a Lac formed by waters melt and located between the frontal Moraine and the glacier which plunges in water in the shape of a cliff of ice.

The glacier of Arsine is also remarkable for the size of its lateral moraines and frontal, for the presence of many moutonnées rocks in the neighborhoods and for the milky color of melt waters forming of other small lakes close to the hamlet of Casset.

Formation

The lake, made up of two parts separated by a small medial moraine and connected by an artificial channel, was formed in several stages since the Années 1940 :

In 1952, an air photograph highlights the presence of a lake of 0,7 hectare at the foot of the glacier of Arsine and being probably formed during the ten previous years.
the lake passes to a surface of 3,3 hectares in 1969.
In July 1985, Mr. Vallon of the LGGE gives alarm because the lake passed to a surface of 5,9 hectares for a volume of 800 000 m ³. The level of the lake assembles 50 cm/an and it is only with two meters of the higher edge of the moraine. A too fast dump of the lake would put in danger the hamlet of Casset located downstream, in the small valley of Small Tabuc.
a 250 meters length channel allowing to stabilize the level of the lake by evacuating 15 m ³ /s is built in the urgency between on April 14th and on June 23rd 1986.
on July 25th, 1986, with 12:45, important a vêlage of the glacier occurs (30 000 m ³ of ice fall into the lake) involving a wave and a rise from the level from the lake one meter. The channel functioned perfectly and there was no damage (besides some splashed walkers).
a second lake was formed since in the West of the first and it flows naturally in the channel. It results from the fusion of a fragment of the glacier entirely covered by a moraine with surface.

It is in this second lake that the glacier of Arsine plunges in water in the shape of a cliff of ice of several meters height. Under the action of the projection and cast iron of the glacier, rocks which compose the moraine of surface falls uninterrupted into the lake and from the blocks of ice are detached from time to time, plunging in the small lake to form Iceberg S.

External bond

LGGE of Grenoble

Source

the page on the glacier of Arsine of the LGGE of Grenoble

Random links: