Video: "Penitent sinners" on the slopes of the Andes
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Penitentes - an amazingly beautiful natural phenomenon. This is the name for the high spiers made of snow, which in the Andes can reach a height of several meters. These crystal spiers received a specific name due to the fact that from a distance their cluster resembles a procession in white robes. Literally, "penitentes" means "repentant sinners."
On average, the height of the penitentes varies - from a few centimeters to 2 meters, once a "record holder" was registered - a 5-meter giant! Snow-covered spiers are formed at an altitude of more than 4 thousand meters above sea level in the partially snow-covered regions of the Andes between Argentina and Chile, where they have become a common phenomenon. For the first time in the scientific literature, they started talking about penitentes after 1839, when they were described in his studies by C. Darwin. On one of the expeditions on the road from Santiago de Chile to the Argentine city of Mendoza, the scientist observed unusual "snow fields" and suggested that they were formed under the influence of strong winds. Later, the Argentine geologist L. Catalano proved that the reason for the formation of penitentes was different. When the snow thawed during the day freezes at night, its crystals under the influence of an electric field are located perpendicular to the magnetic field lines of the Earth, which gives the spiers the same shape.
In addition to the Andes, snow spiers are also found on the Khumbu glacier of Mount Everest. Here they reach enormous sizes - they even rise by 30 m! The poetic term "repentant sinners" has taken root in science, although it was coined by the artist and mountaineer Rudolf Reshreiter, who portrayed the phenomenon. The crystal prongs reminded him of penitents with bowed heads and bowed backs.
On the site Kulturologiya.ru we have already written about other "ice" wonders of nature: about colorful icebergs, the Perito Moreno glacier-dam and even about the largest ice cave The Eisriesenwelt!
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