Glacier Bay - Worlds of Ice
Twenty thousand years ago large parts of the world were covered by thick layers of ice. It is virtually impossible to imagine an environment so alien, so utterly unlivable. Indeed, as recently as during the 'Age of Reason', all geo-morphological features were interpreted within the paradigm of 'The Flood'. Only in the 19th century did scientists start to think in terms of ice, and it wasn't until the 20th century that it was generally accepted that a number of 'ice ages' of durations measurable in tens of thousands of years had recently swept over large parts of the Earth. I remember my Dad patiently explaining where the large boulders behind our backyard came from, and what the origin was of the hills we were hiking on one weekend. His stories of sheets of ice as high as the clouds and of deep lakes being gouged out of the ground stirred my imagination, and started a life-long interest in the art of elucidating the origins of current landforms in terms of past conditions.
Today the Sea Lion took us into Glacier Bay, and we found ourselves surrounded by glaciers, still majestic, but in fact minute remnants of the ice sheets of the past, inside a landscape carved and molded by the ice giants that once were. It was an exhilarating experience to attempt to visualize the ice of glaciers ten or even a hundred times the size of the ones we encountered, grinding their way through the inlets and straits we now sailed through, leaving the moraines, gouges and striations on the sides of the mountains. To be able to explain to ourselves how the valleys were formed, why 'horns' are shaped the way they are, or why gravel deposits are where we now find them, in short, to be able to interpret all sorts of landscape features in terms of the recent glacial past, made our day extra special. One glacier, the Lamplugh, had an especially well-developed sub-glacial river pouring out through an arch-shaped ice cave of impressive dimensions. Watching the silt-laden water gush out of the glacier, through the gateway of the ice cave into the sea, gave us a glimpse of the dynamic power of ice to shape the Earth. Similar rivers, but many times larger, ran on, through and under the mile-high ice sheets that used to cover much of our world. Such rivers left us 'kames' and other massive deposits of sand and gravel, which most of us would have just called hills and ridges. The quality of life increases with the level of understanding of the world we live in.
Twenty thousand years ago large parts of the world were covered by thick layers of ice. It is virtually impossible to imagine an environment so alien, so utterly unlivable. Indeed, as recently as during the 'Age of Reason', all geo-morphological features were interpreted within the paradigm of 'The Flood'. Only in the 19th century did scientists start to think in terms of ice, and it wasn't until the 20th century that it was generally accepted that a number of 'ice ages' of durations measurable in tens of thousands of years had recently swept over large parts of the Earth. I remember my Dad patiently explaining where the large boulders behind our backyard came from, and what the origin was of the hills we were hiking on one weekend. His stories of sheets of ice as high as the clouds and of deep lakes being gouged out of the ground stirred my imagination, and started a life-long interest in the art of elucidating the origins of current landforms in terms of past conditions.
Today the Sea Lion took us into Glacier Bay, and we found ourselves surrounded by glaciers, still majestic, but in fact minute remnants of the ice sheets of the past, inside a landscape carved and molded by the ice giants that once were. It was an exhilarating experience to attempt to visualize the ice of glaciers ten or even a hundred times the size of the ones we encountered, grinding their way through the inlets and straits we now sailed through, leaving the moraines, gouges and striations on the sides of the mountains. To be able to explain to ourselves how the valleys were formed, why 'horns' are shaped the way they are, or why gravel deposits are where we now find them, in short, to be able to interpret all sorts of landscape features in terms of the recent glacial past, made our day extra special. One glacier, the Lamplugh, had an especially well-developed sub-glacial river pouring out through an arch-shaped ice cave of impressive dimensions. Watching the silt-laden water gush out of the glacier, through the gateway of the ice cave into the sea, gave us a glimpse of the dynamic power of ice to shape the Earth. Similar rivers, but many times larger, ran on, through and under the mile-high ice sheets that used to cover much of our world. Such rivers left us 'kames' and other massive deposits of sand and gravel, which most of us would have just called hills and ridges. The quality of life increases with the level of understanding of the world we live in.
