Siachen Glacier of Karakoram Mountains, Ladakh - Its Secular Retreat

The Siachen glacier is the second largest glacier known outside the polar and sub-polar regions and the largest in the Karakoram Himalaya. The, glacier with a length of 74 km is an example of the nature and size of the glaciers that must have once existed in the Himalaya towards the end of the last Ice Age. This glacier, primarily, because of its size has remained an important topic of glacier study and survey. Observation of the glacier front from 1862AD till date has revealed that there may have been a rapid advance of 700 m or so between 1862 and 1909, which was subsequently neutralised by relatively faster retreat between 1929AD and 1958AD. The glacier along its snout front has since been in rest mode, a term used in glaciology to depict glaciers with very low or practically nil retreat.