The Glaciers of Yosemite National Park

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The Glaciers of Yosemite National Park

One of nature's most powerful and influential forces is also one of nature's coldest and slowest processes. These great icy rivers are called glaciers and have formed some of the most beautiful scenery on this planet. These enormous frozen bodies of water are often thousands of feet wide and deep and many miles long. They cover millions of acres of land and drastically change the land into beautiful mountains with many amazing features. One of the areas where glaciers have been most influential is in Yosemite National Park in California. Here almost every glacial feature is shown. However, before this information about glaciers in Yosemite was clear, there was the Yosemite Controversy with arguments of different views of how the valley originated. Glaciers are best described in this passage by naturalist John Muir: (Bailey) (Guyton)

The work of glaciers, especially the part they have played in sculpturing the face of the earth, is as yet but little understood, because they have so few loving observers willing to remain with them long enough to appreciate them. Water rivers work openly where people dwell, and so does the rain and the dew, and the great salt sea embracing all the world; and even the universal ocean of air, though invisible, yet it speaks aloud in a thousand voices, and explains its modes of working and its power. But glaciers, back in their cold solitudes, work apart from men, exerting their tremendous energies in silence and darkness. Outspread, spirit-like, they brood above the long predestined landscapes, working on unwearied though unmeasured ages, until, in the fullness of time, the mountains and valleys and plains are brought forth, channels furrowed for the rive...

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... which shaped the valley even more. Rockfall has shaped the Royal Arches and Mirror Lake. Recently in July of 1996, there was a large rock fall and in January of 1997 the Merced River flooded proving that the geology of Yosemite is a forever changing process that still goes on to this day. (Guyton)

Bibliography

Bailey, Ronald H. Planet Earth: Glacier. Time-Life Books: Alexandria, 1982.

Guyton, Bill. Glaciers of California. University of California Press: Berkeley, 1998.

Huber, N. King. The Geologic Story of Yosemite National Park. Yosemite Association:

Yosemite National Park, 1989.

Lutgens, Fredrick K. and Edward J. Tarbuck. Earth Science. Prentice Hall: Upper

Saddle River, 2002.

Matthes, Francois E. The Incomparable Valley. University of California Press:

Berkeley, 1950.

Tierney, Tim. Geology of the Mono Basin. Kutsavi Press: Lee Vining, 1995.

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