moraine

Consulting geologists cautioned that surrounding valleys were composed of porous glacial moraine unsuitable for water containment.

Locating these moraines enabled the researchers to map older glacier extents before pilots took their first flyover photos in the early 1930s.

Now, he was on that titular mountain with his fiancée: walking a precarious bridge, crossing jagged moraines and traversing rocky terrain on a nine-day trek to the Everest base camp.

They attribute the disaster to the failure of the moraines, characterised by loose boulders, rocks and soil at the edge of the glacial lake.

By the time it crossed the lagoon, the wave from a large avalanche would loom 70 feet above the top of the moraine.