Nature
Grand Pacific Glacier is a major tidewater glacier in the Saint Elias Mountains at the head of Tarr Inlet, spanning British Columbia and Alaska. Its length and dimensions have varied with changing conditions, and by 2004 its terminus was about two miles wide, with an ice face averaging about one hundred fifty feet high and thicker ice behind it. The glacier’s front showed striking contrasts: a faster-moving, debris-covered western side and a slower eastern side, with thick rock cover reducing melt in places. After advancing for decades to a maximum around 1992, it retreated unevenly, separated from Margerie Glacier by 2004, and became an important visible example of changing coastal ice dynamics.
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British Columbia · Canada