What is an alpine glacier?
USGS/L.C. Reed photograph at World Data Center for Glaciology, Boulder This might very well be what you are currently asking yourself. Glaciers, as you are probably aware, are great blocks of ice that at one point covered a large part of the Earth. But since the most recent Ice-Age, Glaciers have been reduced in size and now only 2% of the Earth’s total water is retained in them. While this is still a great deal, the average American does not come into contact with Glaciers on a regular basis. In a sense, Alpine Glaciers are different. Almost all of the Mid- to Nothern United States was at one time covered by Glaciers and they have left their mark. The landscape has been altered by the slow but inevitable progress of these enormous ice blocks. In Alpine Glaciers we can still see evidence of the erosive and depositionary effects of Glaciers. Alpine Glaciers are sheets of compact ice up to hundreds of meters thick. Unlike the ice sheets that cover Antarctica and most of Greenland, Alpine
