Less Info
Add to Lightbox Download

The McBride tidewater Glacier, Glacier Bay national Park and Preserve, Southeast Alaska, USA.

The McBride tidewater Glacier, Glacier Bay national Park and Preserve, Southeast Alaska, USA.

The Glacier Bay Basin is a myriad combination of tidewater glaciers, snow-capped mountain ranges, ocean coastlines, deep fjords, and freshwater rivers and lakes that provide widely varying land and seascapes, and hosts a mosaic of plant communities, and a great variety of marine and terrestrial wildlife. It has many branches, inlets, lagoons, islands, and channels that hold prospects for scientific exploration and a visual treat for the visitor.
Glacier Bay, the body of water, covers an area 1.375 square miles (3,560 km2) of glaciers and accounts for 27% of the park area. It was a large single glacier of solid ice until early 18th century. It started retreating and evolved over the centuries into the largest protected water area park in the world. It was formerly known as the Grand Pacific Glacier about 4,000 feet (1200 m) thick and about 20 miles (32 km) in width, which has since then, over the last more than 200 years retreated by 65 miles (105 kms) to the head of the bay at Tarr Inlet, and in this process left separate 20 other glaciers, including this one, in its trail.
Glaciers are very dynamic entities and there are seven “active” tidewater glaciers in Glacier bay, which are advancing into the sea and thus calve off large chunks of ice that fall into the sea with a thunderous noise, raising large waves.

Filename
ice-5.tif
Copyright
© 2013 Duncan Murrell
Image Size
5290x3632 / 110.0MB
Contained in galleries
Southeast Alaska
The McBride tidewater Glacier, Glacier Bay national Park and Preserve, Southeast Alaska, USA.<br /> <br /> The Glacier Bay Basin is a myriad combination of tidewater glaciers, snow-capped mountain ranges, ocean coastlines, deep fjords, and freshwater rivers and lakes that provide widely varying land and seascapes, and hosts a mosaic of plant communities, and a great variety of marine and terrestrial wildlife. It has many branches, inlets, lagoons, islands, and channels that hold prospects for scientific exploration and a visual treat for the visitor.<br /> Glacier Bay, the body of water, covers an area 1.375 square miles (3,560 km2) of glaciers and accounts for 27% of the park area. It was a large single glacier of solid ice until early 18th century. It started retreating and evolved over the centuries into the largest protected water area park in the world. It was formerly known as the Grand Pacific Glacier about 4,000 feet (1200 m) thick and about 20 miles (32 km) in width, which has since then, over the last more than 200 years retreated by 65 miles (105 kms) to the head of the bay at Tarr Inlet, and in this process left separate 20 other glaciers, including this one, in its trail.<br /> Glaciers are very dynamic entities and there are seven “active” tidewater glaciers in Glacier bay, which are advancing into the sea and thus calve off large chunks of ice that fall into the sea with a thunderous noise, raising large waves.