Patagonian ice dam studied from space cracks open   Tourists watch as the 70 meters (220 feets) front wall of the glacier Perito Moreno breaks down Sunday, March 14, 2003 for the first time in 16 years in Lago Argentino, some 3,200 kilometers, (2,000 miles) southwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina.   The view before the fracture took place: ice piles up against the far peninsula, seen at the end of February 2004. Credit: Ramón Torres.   This MERIS image acquired 6 February 2004 shows the entire bottom tip of South America, including the Patagonian Icefields. from which the Perito Moreno glacier extending to its right into Lago Argentino, see marking.   ASAR image of Southern Patagonia Icefield, acquired 25 January 2004. The two boxes seen in the image highlight the location of detailed sub-images to be seen below: Box 1 encloses the Perito Moreno ice tongue while Box 2 highlights the flooded area of the Brazo Sur lake body.   ASAR image from 26 September 2003 showing the tongue of Moreno Glacier: the red line marks the present glacier front, the blue line the ice front derived from an ASAR image acquired on 20 December 2002 and the green line is from an ASAR image from 28 February 2003.   ASAR image from 25 January 2004 showing the flooded area: the green line marks the present lake border and the blue line is the lake border derived from an ASAR image from 12 October 2003. The flooded area is about 11 km².   A couple looks at the Perito Moreno Glacier as it decends into the Argentino Lake from an observatory in the Los Glaciares National Park on the Patagonia region of Southern Argentina on May 17, 2003. The front of the glacier is more than 4 km (2,5 miles) long and is more than 60 meters (200 feet) high. Release date: 11 June 2004