Return to Home PageFamous Glaciers
Some of the worlds most notable glaciers are in
Europe. The best known ones are in the French Swiss Alps. The
glaciers that are included are the Mer de Glace and the Aletsch
Glacier. The largest glacier in Europe is the Jostedal Glacier.
It covers about 300 sq. miles (780 sq. kilometers). A notable glacier
in Asia is the Muzart Glacier. It covers 1,036,000 kilometers
(400,000 sq. miles), the size equal to the Rocky Mountains in the
United States. It has the length of about 2,414 kilometers (about
1,500 miles). It has the width of 320 to 480 kilometers (about 200 to
300 miles). Major glaciers also cover the region in North
America.
The largest and most famous glacier is Malaspina Glacier
on Yakutat Bay in Alaska. It covers 2,176 kilometers (840 sq. miles).
But the biggest glacier in the world is the ice sheet on Antarctica.
This glacier covers 13 million sq. kilometers (about 5 million sq.
miles). The second biggest glacier in the world is the ice sheet on
Greenland. It covers 1.8 million sq. kilometers (about 700,000 sq.
miles). It is over 2,700 meters in thickness (more than 9,000 feet).
Right now a lot of the glaciers are shrinking because of global
warming.