GEOSYSTEMS Mrs. Osborne, Room 124

 In July I went to Alaska. I was thrilled to see the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau. It has been studied a lot because it is so accessible -- you can see how close I am to the face. The face or front of the glacier is about 150 feet tall. This glacier is always advancing as more snow falls in the Juneau ice fields in the high mountains. However, it has been retreating, or melting, more than advancing. That means the glacier gets smaller each year. This large lake has resulted from the melting of the ice and the dropping of moraine (rocks carried by the glacier) which form the sides of the lake. I am standing on glacial silt that forms the bottom and the beach of the lake. This picture doesn't show several huge chunks of ice that are slowly melting in the lake. The lake extends out toward the ocean, only a mile away.