Miage Glacier
Description
The Miage Glacier is a debris-covered glacier in northwestern Italy. It is situated on the southwest flank of the Mont Blanc massif, flowing from Col de Bionnassay (3892m above sea level) into Val Veny. At around 10km in length, it is Italy's longest glacier and also the largest debris-covered glacier in Europe. Approximately 5km2 of its total area of ~11km2 is covered in debris originating primarily in rockfall from surrounding walls and avalanching in accumulation areas of its four tributaries. Debris carried along within the glacier is also being exposed at increased rates due to accelerating thinning of the glacier tongue.The number of sources of supraglacial debris as well as the unusual, mica schist-dominated lithology of the rock walls surrounding the glacier, makes for a varied debris lithology; debris cover becomes continuous at ~2400m above mean sea level (asl) and remains unbroken to the terminus. Patchy areas can occur, however, where crevasses or moulins occur. Debris thickness generally increases from a few centimetres at 2400m asl to over at the terminus at ~1775m asl, although the spatial distribution of thicknesses is heterogeneous especially on parts of the northern terminal lobe.
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