Columbia Glacier Essay

The Columbia Glacier drops down an ice field 3,050 meters above sea level, down the side of the Chugach Mountains, and into Prince William Sound. The glacier is one of the most rapid changing glaciers in the world. The glacier flows directly into the sea. When it was first discovered, the beak of the glacier went down to the northern edge of Heather Island. This island is near Columbia Bay. In 1980, the position of the glacier changed and is still changing today. The beak of the glacier has moved more than 20 kilometers to the north in 2014. It went past Terentiev Lake and Great Nunatak Peak. The beak has moved at least more than a kilometer, but the length that it has moved has not stayed the same. The beak did not move between 2000 and 2006, because …show more content…
Trimlines, which are rings of newly exposed rock, became noticeable around the inlet throughout the 2000s. Glaciers lift and carry sediments, rocks, and other fragments of the Earth’s surface and pile on the moraines. The moraine of the Columbia created an underwater ridge that prevented the sediments from moving past it. The moraine’s structure played an important role in the strength of the glacier before 1980. The glacier built its moraine over a period of time and the ice and rock acted like a wall keeping out the sea. The moraine was held by the shoreline on one end and by the underwater terminal moraine at the other. In 1980, the glacier moved off of the moraine and the glacier lost its support. This caused grinding and dragging to occur across the sea floor. A large chunk of ice was broken and caused the rate of the ice flow to increase and icebergs broke off from the glacier. During the 2007 and 2010, the beak passed the Great Nunatak Peak and Kadin Peak. This changed the breaking of the icebergs greatly. The breaking off of the icebergs normally happened at a steady pace and the pieces of the ice that broke off were typically