Ice-covered, glacially dammed lake on northwest side of Aktineq Glacier

Location:
Aktineq Glacier, Bylot Island, 41 km NW of Pond Inlet, Nunavut, Canada; 72° 57' N, 78° 50-55' W

This ice-dammed lake is surrounded by raised beaches that attest to its unstable level, which is controlled by configuration of the side of the retreating Aktineq Glacier and the changing configurations of the glacier's internal "plumbing." Sediment from this lake may be drawn into the internal conduits of the glacier, based on observations of a highly organic sediment plug observed a few kilometers down ice and at the surface of the glacier, apparently emplaced by a hydrostatically driven fountain (see image 0031, for example) that tapped the glacier's basal debris load. The organic component of the plug was determined to be fecal in origin, probably related to utilization of the lake by nesting geese. The ice contact shoreline of the lake is an unstable, vertical, calving ice face that sheds small icebergs into the lake. The lake can be seen as an elongate brown area on the left side of Aktineq Glacier (B17) in the high resolution version of Image 0001.

Updated 03/30/2010 AW