Proglacial Lake BrownworthProglacial Lake Brownworth abuts a degraded part of the snout, where ice pinnacles are interspersed with areas of sand and pools. The lake is permanently ice-covered except for a moat that develops in summer. Stromatolites (algal columns) project from the lake floor and pierce the ice surface in places. | |||
 Shallow area of Lake Brownworth, with melted surface where runoff from the glacier in the background enters the lake. |  Most of the lake surface is frozen, but with a thin veneer of meltwater on top. The south glacier margin is in the background. |  The serrated margin of Wright Lower Glacier is a consequence of uneven ablation under a patchy wind blow sand cover. The sand enhances runoff of water, which forms alluvial fans that extend into the lake. |  Remnants of dead glacier ice, with a very rough surface, occur within the lake body, suggesting slow decay of the glacier in this location. |
 Differential ablation of clean and sand-covered ice produces a rough surface of hard glacier ice with abundant sharp edges, making surface travel challenging. |  Near the margins of Lake Brownworth, where the water is a few metres deep at most, the ice surface is punctuated by algal growths from the lake bottom. These features are called ‘stromatolites’, and were once thought to grow only in tropical environments. |  Looking down on top of one of the stromatolites, which are typically 20-40 cm in diameter. They have the texture of soggy cardboard! | |
| Photos Michael Hambrey, 2001. | |||