Glaciology

Located in northeast Oregon is the Wallowa Mountains, which contain a rich and understudied glacial history. In order to quantify the number of glaciation stages that have occurred in this locality I will examine twelve lateral moraines that border Wallowa Lake. This beautiful lake stretches 3 and a half miles north to south with a large, bordering moraine on each side and a terminal moraine at the north end. On the west side of the lake there are four moraines and on the east there are eight. As you move from the closest moraine to the farthest from the lake the respective ages of each moraine get older. There has been some age correlation between the west and some of the east moraines as illustrated in Crandell’s “Glaciation at Wallowa Lake,…

Glaciers and Climate Change Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of freshwater, supporting one third of the world's population. Glaciers exist on all continents except Australia and at virtually all latitudes from the tropics to the poles. “How can a piece of a very large ice effect anything?” was my thought before I truly know what glacier is. According to national snow & ice data center, glaciers are made up accumulation of fallen snow exceeds its ablation over many years, and even centuries. …

Permafrost Remember Mood Rings? They were rings that change colors depending on your emotions. At least that’s what they wanted us to think. Mood Rings are really thermochroic liquid crystals that color changes based on the temperature of the finger. Something that seems so permanent like the color of a crystal is subject to change just by the mere change of the temperature of its environment. Some environments are also rigid and structured just like the crystals in Mood Rings, but yet, are also…

Glaciers were once present in Minnesota thousands of years ago, and as they retreated, they left behind large amounts of glacial meltwater and various landforms still present to this day. A glacier is a massive piece of ice that completely destroys everything in its path. A glacier is formed when snow is present in a location for a long period of time, long enough to freeze all together to be conjoined into a massive chunk of ice. Glaciers are usually formed on a high elevation location. When on…

What is Tundra? The tundra can be found at the top of the earth close to the North Pole. It’s a huge biome that looks so nice and covers the fifth of the earth’s surface. Tundra comes from the word Tunturia. Tundra is the coldest biome in the earth, and it’s hard to live in it from how cold it is. Tundra doesn’t have trees (treeless) in the Arctic and top of the mountains where the climate is cold or windy. Extremely low temperature and a little precipitation Tundra’s lands are…

Ethnoarchaeological and Ethnohistorical data on mobility furthers understandings of the reorganization (α) phase of the Denesųłiné adaptive cycle. Denesųłiné need to travel efficiently to follow the caribou herds. Three innovations have allowed Denesųłiné to do this: snowshoes, dog sleds and snowmobiles. Walking was the primary form of travel identified in oral traditions. The snowshoe was a great technological advance critical for winter travel. According to Denesųłiné, its invention was from…

The Jacobsville Formation is the earliest formation of the Cambrian Period. Jacobsville Sandstone has a distinguishing characteristic about its deposition that sets it apart from the other formations in the Paleozoic Era. Jacobsville Sandstone is a stream and lake deposit unlike most of the other deposits which were marine sediment deposits. The sandstone is also uniquely red with light coloured marks throughout it which is caused by chemical leaching transversely throughout the bedding planes.…

Glaciers are defined as a persistent body of extremely dense ice that forms over millions of years in result of very cold temperatures that occurred on Earth during the Ice Age. The formation of Glaciers results when an abundance of snow exceeds its melting and sublimation point over many centuries. However, the introduction of global warming to the Earth is causing an adverse effect on all glaciers around the world, thus riding the world of the essential necessities glaciers have provided us…

Introduction The Tasman Glacier is located in the heart of the Southern Alps, in the South Island of New Zealand. Tasman Glacier is New Zealand’s biggest glacier and therefore is an attraction. However, the Glacier has been retreating due to a number of processes which are operating. For example, between the years of 2000-2006, the Tasman Glacier had retreated at approximately 54 metres per year (Robert C. Dykes, Brook, & Winkler, 2010). The aim of this research was to gain an understanding as…

The last ice age happened 2 million years ago until 10,000 years ago. At this point, North America is at its normal position, north of the equator. The glacier that covered the Ice Age was the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Before the Ice Age, there was a valley called the Hudson Valley. During the Ice Age a glacier scraped through the rock, which gouged out 240 meters of rock. The sediments got removed from their previous location and deposited in a huge pile, a terminal moraine in Long Island. The…