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Geological Formations

Penny Ice Cap

Erosional and Karst Formations

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The Penny Ice Cap is a 6,000-square-kilometer ice cap in Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada, forming a 2,000-meter-high barrier on the Cumberland Peninsula amid deep fjords and glaciated valleys. It is a remnant of the Laurentide ice sheet, and Canadian researchers have studied its freezing and thawing patterns over centuries through ice core samples; the cap has been thinning and its valley glaciers retreating in recent decades with rising Arctic air temperatures. It is named for Captain William Penny, a whaling captain who pioneered overwintering with the Inuit at Cumberland Sound and later searched for the lost Franklin expedition.

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Penny Ice Cap (Wikipedia)
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The Penny Ice Cap, formerly Penny Icecap, is a 6,000 km2 (2,300 sq mi) ice cap in Auyuittuq National Park of Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada.
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