Borgbjerg and Löberen glaciers, East Greenland -- the most recent surge

 

There is much in the literature about the surging behaviour of Löberen, on the north shore of Nordvestfjord. We can see it here on the right, in the satellite image.  Since the 1955-65 surge came to an end, the glacier has retreated c 8 km up-valley, leaving relatively few traces on the valley floor.

But I realised when looking at the image that the next glacier to the west -- Borgbjerg Gletscher -- experienced a much bigger surge, probably at the same time, with a calving ice front out in the fjord. Also -- and this is extremely rare -- there is an extensive area of dead ice or ice-cored moraine very close to the shoreline, around 6 km from the present glacier edge. You can see the pockmark pattern of small meltwater pools. As with Löberen next door, the ice edge retreat post-surge is approx 8 km over approx 60 years.

If you look at the glaciers as they are today, they are covered with bright blue meltwater pools -- a characteristic of glaciers that are "healing" themselves following the drastic changes in ice surface elevation caused by a period of rapid ice flow.