Lake Yosemite Research Paper

According to the US National Park Service: “About ten thousand years ago the last Valley glacier that melted and created a shallow lake, which is Lake Yosemite. Lake Yosemite eventually filled in with silt, leaving today's level Valley floor.” Rocks also make up a lot of Yosemite, as it is mostly made up of plutonic igneous rocks. Granite, granodiorite, tonalite,
Yosemite Valley first started forming Eighty to twenty-five million years ago. The causes that contributed to this great formation of this place in our own backyard, was uplift and erosion that stripped away most of the sedimentary layers, leaving the cooled magma exposed. Twenty-five million years ago, rolling hills and valleys covered the current Yosemite area, the Merced river flowed through a shallow valley. Ten million years the landscape was deeper and more wide opened causing the whole range …show more content…
Approximately three million years ago is when a canyon type landscape was forming that had continued uplift. The Merced River continued to flow in the canyon it was already forming and at this point is when the river already cut three thousand feet deep. Also during this time, the ice age is starting to begin causing a colder climate and forests to dissipate. About one million to two hundred and fifty thousand years ago one and possibly more glacial advances filled up Yosemite Valley all the way to the very top. During this time, it was projected that Half Dome was about nine hundred feet above the ice, Half Dome was one of the very few peaks that was not engulfed by the ice. Most of the streams that flowed into the Merced River were then changed to cascades that were high above the valley. Thirty thousand years ago during the Tioga glaciation Yosemite Glacier, there was a smaller ice sheet that moved into the Valley and ended its journey in Bridalveil Fall. Around ten thousand years ago is when