Boat Trip to Eqi Glacier – Part 3

Eqip Sermia is one of the most active glaciers in Greenland. It is about 4 kilometers wide and up to 200 meters tall.

In the summer the glacier calves frequently. When it does, the sight and sound provide a wonderful spectacle.

As you know, the Ice Cap is made of snow, and when this snow is being packed down by even more snow, it turns into ice. Over the time, the air trapped between the individual snowflakes becomes air bubbles under pressure. So when the glacier calves, the air is released from the bubble, producing the loud cracking sound.

I’ve seen glacier calving before, but what makes this glacier special is the waves it generates after the calving.

If you think this is nothing. Check out this 2012 video embedded in the Washington Post article published on the same day while we were in front of the Eqi Glacier.

According to the article, the cause the tsunami, is the glacier’s 200 meter sheer height, that allowed large amount of ice to collapse into the water at one time. “When this particular ice mass fell into the fjord, whose waters are quite shallow near the front of the glacier, it created a sudden tsunami wave of some 50 meters (164 feet) in height”. That’s pretty impressive for a glacier!