Laguna de los Tres and Laguna Sucia

by Martin Mergili

The Laguna Sucia and the Laguna de los Tres fill depressions formed through the accentuating effects of glacial erosion and deposition at the eastern side of the Monte Fitz Roy. Whereas Laguna Sucia (on the left side in the title image) is impounded by a terminal moraine, Laguna de los Tres (on the right side in the title image) fills a depression in the bedrock. Both lakes are directly influenced by their mother glaciers. Monte Fitz Roy forms part of a granitic pluton, remaining after the less resistant surrounding rocks have been eroded. The Laguna de los Tres can be reached through a day hike from El Chaltén.

The Andes near El Chaltén in three dimensions

This 3D view enables you to view the landscape from various perspectives. Use the left mouse key to rotate, the mouse wheel to zoom, and the right mouse key to drag the view.

This scene illustrates the landscape at the eastern margin of the Southern Patagonian Andes. Different generations of glacial lakes can be recognized: whereas the Laguna Torre is still in direct contact to the glacier, Laguna Sucia has lost this type of contact - a fate which has struck the small lakes farther down in the forelands already at the end of the last ice age.

This scene was made with QGIS and Qgis2threejs plugin, and uses the following libraries: three.js http://threejs.org/ (LICENSE) and Proj4js http://trac.osgeo.org/proj4js/ (LICENSE). Background: Stamen Terrain.

An exciting walk to the Laguna de los Tres

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Click on the arrows to hike from El Chaltén to the Laguna de Los Tres.

Upstream from El Chaltén, the Río de las Vueltas consists of various branches occupying a wide river bed. This type of phenomenon is known as braided river.

Monte Fitz Roy and the clouds

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Click on the arrows to experience the different meteorological conditions during a day with predominantly fine weather.

In the morning, the westerly winds drive high clouds in eastern direction. This video is 20-fold accelerated.

Time lapse videos: Martin Mergili

Lliboutry, L. (1953): Snow and ice in the Monte Fitz Roy region (Patagonia). Journal of Glaciology 2(14): 255-261 [Access source]

Masiokas, M.H., Luckman, B.H., Villalba, R., Delgado, S., Skvarca, P. & Ripalta, A. (2009): Little Ice Age fluctuations of small glaciers in the Monte Fitz Roy and Lago del Desierto areas, south Patagonian Andes, Argentina. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 281(3-4): 351-362 [Access source]

Wikipedia article on El Chaltén [Access source]

Wikipedia article on the Monte Fitz Roy [Access source]