laciers - Frozen in Time
| Glaciers cover approximately 30,000 square miles - or 5.1 percent - of Alaska, which is 128 times more area covered by glaciers than in the rest of the United States. There are an estimated 100,000 glaciers in Alaska, ranging from tiny cirque glaciers to huge valley glaciers.
Glaciers are formed where, over a number of years, more snow falls than melts. Alaska's glaciers fall roughly into five general categories: alpine, valley, piedmont, ice fields and icecaps. Alpine (mountain and cirque) glaciers head high on the slopes of mountains and plateaus. Valley glaciers are an overflowing accumulation of ice from mountain or plateau basins. Piedmont glaciers form when one or more glaciers join to form a fan-shaped ice mass at the foot of a mountain range. Ice fields develop when large valley glaciers interconnect, leaving only the highest peaks and ridges to rise above the ice surface. Icecaps are smaller snow and ice-filled basins or plateaus. The greatest concentrations of glaciers are in the Alaska Range, Wrangell Mountains and the coastal ranges of the Chugach, Coast, Kenai and Saint Elias mountains, where annual precipitation is high. Most of Alaska's major rivers originate at glaciers. About three-fourths of all the fresh water in Alaska is stored as glacial ice. This is many times greater than the volume of water stored in all the state's lakes, ponds, rivers and reservoirs. Alaska's better known glaciers accessible by road are: Worthington and Black Rapids on the Richardson Highway, Matanuska on the Glenn Highway, Portage on the Seward Highway and Mendenhall on the Glacier Highway. In addition Childs and Sheridan glaciers may be reached by car from Cordova, and Valdez Glacier is only a few miles from Valdez. The terminus of Muldrow glacier in Denali National Park and Preserve is visible at a distance along several miles of the park road. There are also many spectacular glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve and in Prince William Sound which are accessible by tour boat. |
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(photo � 1995 Barbara Logan)
| This is Worthington Glacier near Thompson Pass on July 25, 1995. This is the view from the Richardson Highway. It is one of the most accessible glaciers by road in Alaska. Even from this distance, a little over a mile, you can see the "blue" ice. Glacier ice often appears blue because its great thickness absorbs all the colors of the spectrum except blue, which is reflected back. |
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(photo � 1995 Barbara Logan)
| In this closer view of the far left side of Worthington Glacier you can clearly see the blue ice. The glacier is still about 100 yards away in this picture. |
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(photo � 1995 Barbara Logan)
| Another view of the far left side showing the "glacial moraine," a mass of rocks, gravel, sand, clay, etc. carried and deposited directly by glaciers, along the side (lateral moraine), at the lower end (terminal moraine), or beneath the ice (ground moraine). |
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This page was last updated 25 January 2004 � Barbara Logan
URL is http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~soakbear/glaciers.htm