Vast area of Geikie Snowfield of upper parts of Franz Josef Glacier during setting sun with Mt. Tasman and Aoraki, Mount Cook dominating skyline, Westland Tai Poutini National Park, West Coast, UNESCO World Heritage Area, New Zealand, NZ

Perhaps everyone knows how glaciers work…a lot of snow (and I mean a lot of it, up to 50m to gain a compressing weight of its own) compacting into the ice with gravity pulling this mass down the hill. It may however be a bit harder for everyone to imagine the scale of the area where all this compacting happens.
Franz Josef Glacier is one of the smaller glaciers by world standards but quite a sizeable chunk of ice in New Zealand landscape.
On this photograph I’ve been hoping to show the vastness of the upper parts of this currently about 10km long glacier. With 2 highest peaks of the New Zealand’s Southern Alps dominating the background – Mount Tasman on far top left 3,497m and highest mountain Aoraki/Mount Cook 3,724m next to it on right, the vastness of the Geikie and Davis Snowfields of the Franz Josef Glacier is quite apparent.
This wonderful scene has been photographed just as the sun was dipping over the horizon of the Tasman Sea on right and I love the beautiful light bouncing over about 30 square km large NEVE in wonderful hues of purple, pink and orange. Hope you enjoy this image, too. Thank you.

A promotional rugby game on the NEVE of the Fox Glacier - Westland National Park, West Coast, New Zealand

By the end of the last year’s winter, we had a lot of fun. With our still photography we were covering an exciting promo project of the Glacier Country in New Zealand – Rugby Match on Fox Glacier Neve. This project offers an opportunity to win NZ$50.000 price package in a Glacier Country Rugby Competition. For details please go to – glaciercountry.co.nz
On this project we worked alongside of a great film maker from Auckland, Tony Burrows of Motion Pacific who was putting together a short promo movie from the match, showcasing an incredible environment we are so fortunate to live in. The aim with this project is to attract attention of all rugby fans, tourists and journalists who will travel to New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup and to show them the opportunities and incredible beauty our precious West Coast/Glacier Country has on offer. We all hope here on the West Coast that these rugby fans will take an opportunity to extend their “rugby holidays” and will swing over the hills to the coast to pay us a visit. We look forward to seeing them here.

To see more images, please visit – GLACIER COUNTRY or follow this Facebook link – http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.188350501209683.45001.186662558045144

Fox Glacier under highest peaks in New Zealand - Mt. Tasman 3,497m and Mt Cook 3,754m

When do we call a chunk of ice a glacier? Usually, the ice mass has to be at least 100m x 100m in size and needs to show some signs of a present or past movement.
Generally, glaciers are divided into two main groups – Ice Sheets and Valley Glaciers, each with several sub-types.
Ice Sheets or Continental Glaciers are the largest masses of ice on Earth spreading over 50,000 square kilometres with the depth of ice sometimes more than 4,200m. They are only found in Antarctica and Greenland. Ice Shelves are floating extensions of Ice Sheets and surround most of Antarctica. Ice masses smaller than 50,000km2, with a dome-shaped accumulation of ice and snow completely covering mountainous areas, are called Ice Caps and are found in high elevations of polar and sub-polar regions. Similar but smaller than Ice Caps are Ice Fields which can cover low-relief mountain plateaus providing a source of ice for Mountain or Valley Glaciers. Relatively smaller than its originating ice source are Outlet Glaciers, these are rapidly moving frozen streams flowing out of larger bodies of ice.

Beautiful pastel colours of the sunset above Franz Josef Glacier photographed from Centennial Hut toward the Tasman Sea visible on a horizon. Tusk Rocks in a foreground, Chamberlin Snowfield right, Agassiz Glacier left - Westland National Park, West Coast, New Zealand

The most destructive and powerful hand of Mother Nature lies, arguably, in the cryosphere. We may not see it doing much immediate damage, but by observing the landscape we can see enormous changes in our environment caused by glaciers. One of the very typical and most visible footprints glaciers leave behind are our, often ice free, valleys. Entire mountainsides were remodeled by

glacial action leaving only steep valley walls behind. In the upper reaches of the Franz Josef Glacier there is massive pressure from the build up of up to 300m of ice and snow. Associated erosional forces combine to create a bowl shaped depression in the underlying rock called a Cirque, with the snow and ice field contained in the cirque being called the Neve. As gravity encourages ice down the valley the weight of the ice presses downwards and outwards scouring the valleys into a distinctive glaciated U-shape. These are much broader and flatter floored than the V-shaped valleys carved by rivers.

As with all the rest of the glaciated world, New Zealand is also losing ice mass at a rapid rate, with 61% lost since 1850 (Hoelzle et al. 2007), and 11% in the last 30 years (T. Chinn, pers. comm.).

Most of this loss is from the large glaciers calving into pro-glacial lakes, such as the Tasman Glacier. This lake formation is the result of glacier thinning in response to climatic warming in the 20^th century. As well as these large dynamic changes in glacier volume, there are smaller annual changes in volume due to changes in the amount of snow accumulation and snow and ice melt. An idea of how much mass is lost or gained each year throughout the Southern Alps is given by measurements of the end-of-summer snowlines since 1977. These measurement indicate that there have been positive mass balances at times during this period balance (Chinn et al. 2008) and the very sensitive and responsive Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers have advanced as a result.

The advance of Ka Roimata o Hine Hukatere Franz Josef Glacier since 1984 has been extraordinary given the global pattern of receeding glaciers during this period. Recent work has confirmed the very sensitive nature of this glacier – that is it advances or retreats a large amount for a small change in climate (Anderson et al. 2006; Anderson et al. 2008). Combined with its very short response time this explains the large variations in glacier length observed in the last decade.

All of the indications are that Franz Josef Glacier has lost mass in recent years, particularly in 2008, and 2010. We do not have enough measurements to calculate an annual mass balance, but the combination of thinning in the accumulation area and lower amounts of net accumulation observed indicate a negative mass balance. This makes it likely that the recently-started retreat will continue.

This is an excerpt from a full report researched and written by one of the leading New Zealand glaciologists Brian Anderson/Victoria University Wellington.

Text ©Brian Anderson

The ice flow of a glacier is divided into two types, internal deformation and basal sliding. Internal deformation is movement of parts of the glacier relative to itself. Throughout the descent of the glacier, the ice at the sides and bottom side of the glacier are subject to more friction from the valley floor and walls, and therefore forced to move at a slower rate than the ice in the centre of the glacier. As a result the ice deforms within itself. Basal sliding occurs as water, either rain or melt passes underneath the glacier and acts as a lubricant between the ice and the bedrock. This is the main source of terminal velocity of temperate glaciers.

The bottom layers of the glacier flow deform plastically under the pressure allowing the glacier as a whole to slide down the valley like a huge toffee. It is the upper layer of around 30metres where the glacier is more brittle, therefore the ice here cracks and breaks into crevasses and seracs in order to bend over uneven bedrock.