"But in Alaska, a new island has popped up in just four decades. The two-square-mile (five sq km) landmass, known as Prow Knob, was once entirely surrounded by the deep ice of the Alsek Glacier. But NASA has revealed that the small mountain has now been entirely surrounded by water, cutting it off from the mainland. An image taken by the Landsat 8 satellite in August shows that the mountain has now lost all contact with the Alsek Glacier."
"In the earliest recorded observations of the Alsek Glacier, which date back to 1894, the glacier was described as covering the entirety of what is now the Alsek Lake. Follow-up reports made in 1907 describe the glacier as being 'anchored to a nunatak', a rocky outcrop surrounded by flowing glacial ice on all sides. This nunatak, which came to be known as Prow Knob due to its resemblance to a ship's prow, was surrounded by an ice face as much as 50 metres (164ft) high."
Prow Knob, a two-square-mile rocky nunatak in southeastern Alaska, has become fully surrounded by water and is now isolated from the Alsek Glacier. Landsat 8 satellite imagery indicates the mountain lost all contact with the glacier between July 13 and August 6. Historical records show the glacier extended several miles further west in the early 1900s and covered what is now Alsek Lake in 1894, with reports in 1907 describing the ice as anchored around the nunatak. Regional glacier thinning, retreat, and formation of proglacial lakes due to rapid warming produced the island formation within decades.
Read at Mail Online
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