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Two strange circular glacier lakes on Baffin Island


tim.tdj

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Hi Everyone

Last year, I was on a flight from London to Seattle and for some technical reason, the plane had to take a much more Northern flight path than it otherwise would have done. As a result, we flew over the Northern end of Baffin Island. As we flew over the eastern coast of Baffin Island, I saw two amazingly beautiful, roughly circular glacier lakes right next to each other. You can see them in the middle of the attached image from Google Maps.

I have actually looked all over Baffin Island on Google Maps and I have not found any similar circular glacier lakes. I therefore have two questions;

Does anyone on this forum have any idea how these lakes were formed?

Does anyone know why the only two lakes like them on the Baffin Island formed right next to each other?

Thank you very much.

Kind regards

Tim

Two glacier lakes in North East Baffin Island (Google Maps).jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi Cryptodiamond

Thank you very much for your reply.

Yes, those are them. :)

To be honest, I have not come across the word "tarn" before. I have just looked it up on Wikipedia and I have found out that there are a few of them around the world and they are usually formed by glaciers. Thank you very much for introducing me to a new piece of terminology.

I have had another look at Baffin Island using Google Maps (in Satellite mode) and I have found a small number of somewhat irregular liquid water tarns on Cumberland Peninsula but I have not found any other frozen tarns quite like the two I mentioned in my original post. The are quite unique and they are right next to each other. I find them very intriguing and I would be very grateful if more experts could bring their knowledge to bear on them.

Thank you very much.

Kind regards

Tim

Edited by tim.tdj
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