How Do Glaciers Affect The Rocky Mountains

How glaciers affect the Rocky Mountains

Intro

The Rocky Mountains are located in the South West Canada and the North West America all through to central New Mexico. The highest peak of the Rocky Mountains is 14,255 ft. above sea level (encyclopedia). A brief history of the rocky mountain is that the way they were formed during the Mesozoic era when an earthquake occurred involving the plate from the ocean and the plate from the continental running into each other. The Oceanic plate is pushed under the continental plate causing volcanos and the land to be pushed inward causing the land to rise forming mountains (United States). Glacier are made from snow that is then compressed over the years that it turns into ice, they can be formed on both

The glaciers cover about 10 percent of the Earth it forms in the Canada, Greenland, and Antarctica (United States). There are giant ice sheets that cover most of the continent and the depth of the ice sheets range in different thickness ranging from hundreds of feet to thousands of feet. The glaciers have made an enormous impact on the Rocky Mountains by digging through the ground, depositing the sediment that it has picked up, and creating lakes. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Rocky_Mountains.aspx Glacier erosion

When glaciers scrapes across the ground moving dirt and creating deep valleys, it is a process called glacier erosion. It is believed that the glacial erosion has caused the Rocky Mountains to increase its height. During the ice age is when glaciers and ice sheets start to spread from the higher latitudes to the lower

The Glacier Scour Lakes, are lakes that formed when glacier scrape across the bedrock that is then filled with rain water. As the glacier is moving through the earth it Another type of lake created by glacier is called glacier relict lakes, they are giant lakes that were filled with melted glacier water. One example is Lake Agassiz it was formed when ice sheets retreated scraping across the ground. This method is way that the Great Lakes were formed, when the ice sheets retreats

Glacers that are in the alpine reagon can from ice caps, ice fields and cirque, cirques are impressions that are made the mountain. When the glaciers are traped in the cirques they might start to melt and fill the cirque up with water causing a lake to be formed in it place.

Some of the lakes are where created by glacier erosion is Bull Lake in Yellowstone National Park.

Glaciers that form above the alpine line are ice caps, ice fields, and cirque. Cirques are bowl-like depression that is carved into the side to a mountain (discovering). When a glacier gets trapped in a Cirque, if the glacier starts to melt it will fill the cirque, is then becomes a