Kangerlussuaq and East Greenland
Photo (© coastal eddy)
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Google Earth Screenshot
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Saningassoq Lake, West Greenland
Here's a superb series of Greenland images from Flickr user coastal eddy. Unlike most of the Greenland photos featured on Not so Green, which are taken as people pass high over Greenland while travelling between North America and Europe, this series was taken on a flight from Kangerlussuaq airport in West Greenland, so they feature excellent low-altitude details of the West Greenland landscape. The first image here shows the lake called Saningassoq, about five miles northeast of the airport in Kangerlussuaq. The lake shows open water in the Google Earth image, but in the photo here, it is frozen solid and appears to be almost rising above the level of its shoreline.
A few miles further northeast, this image shows the Russell Glacier, or Isunnguata Sermia in Greenlandic. This is one of many tongues of ice extending from the western edge of Greenland's central icecap.
In the foreground here is again the Russell Glacier. The area beyond the glacier is known as Akuliaruserssuaq. In the upper right, below the wing, the edge of the inland icecap is visible.
This image provides a better view of the edge of the icecap. The glacier in the center-right portion of the photo is called Inugpait Quat.
This is a closeup of the tongues of ice that appear in the lower right of the previous image. Much of the western edge of the icecap consists of these laminar iceflows across relatively flat land, as opposed to the steep mountain glaciers that are found to the east and north.
We now shift to the opposite side of Greenland, about 500 miles northeast, in East Greenland. This series of nunataks lies on the eastern slopes of the massive Christian IV Gletscher. The nunataks in this area have a very distinctive appearance, with well-defined horizontal layers, which can be seen well in the high-resolution version of the original image.
Finally, this image shows us the East Greenland coastline. In the foreground, partially obscured by clouds, is Cape Beaupre, with De Reste Bay above it, just below center. At right center, at the edge of the image, is Cape Coster.
Photos taken: February 6, 2007
Photos by: coastal eddy
Route: Kangerlussuaq, Greenland to Copenhagen (?)
