Muir Glacier

Muir Glacier
Type	Valley Glacier
Location	Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, U.S.
Coordinates	59°06′17″N 136°22′56″W / 59.10472°N 136.38222°W / 59.10472; -136.38222Coordinates: 59°06′17″N 136°22′56″W / 59.10472°N 136.38222°W / 59.10472; -136.38222
Length	11 miles (18 km)
Terminus	Ice-contact delta
Status	Retreating

John Muir's cabin on Muir Glacier (circa 1900)^[1]

Muir Glacier is a glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is currently about 0.7 km (0.43 mi) wide at the terminus. As recently as the mid-1980s the glacier was a tidewater glacier and calved icebergs from a wall of ice 60 m (200 feet) tall.^[2]

Muir Glacier has undergone very rapid, well-documented retreat since its Little Ice Age maximum position at the mouth of Glacier Bay around 1780.^[3] Between 1941 and 2004 the glacier retreated more than twelve kilometers (seven miles) and thinned by over 800 meters (2625 feet). Ocean water has filled the valley replacing the ice.^[4]

The glacier is named after John Muir, the naturalist,^[2] who travelled around the area and wrote about it, generating interest in the local envirnoment and in its preservation. His first two visits were in 1878 (at age 41) and 1880. During the visits, he sent an account of his visits in installments to the San Francisco Bulletin. Later, he collected and edited these installments in a book, Travels in Alaska, published in 1915, the year after he died.

See also

• List of glaciers

References

1. ^ Knapp, Adeline (January 1900). "Some Hermit Homes of California Writers". Overland Monthly XXXV (205): 3–10. 
2. ^ ^{a b} Reader's Digest (1980). Natural Wonders of the World. Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest Association. p. 259. ISBN 0-89577-087-3. 
3. ^ Hall, D.K.; Benson, C.S., Field, W.O. (1995). "Changes of glaciers in Glacier Bay, Alaska, using ground and satellite measurements". Physical Geography 16 (1): 27–41. 
4. ^ http://nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/special_high_res.html Photo of glacier in 1941 and 2004