Alaska Glacier Photos
Glacier photos from various regions of Alaska. All pictures on this site may be licensed as stock photos for business use, or purchased as fine art display pictures for home or office decor.
 Aerial view of Long glacier with multiple medial moraines (black lines of rock in the glacier) Wrangell St. Elias National Park, Alaska. © Patrick J. Endres
Grander than cities, great masses of compressed ice
carve through rock and earth, changing the land, creating
new valleys with power and patience only nature can fathom.
These Alaska glaciers move throughout the land, sometimes
ending with hundred-ton chunks of ice crashing into the
water.
Prince William sound in south-central Alaska is home
to some of the most spectacular and easily viewed glaciers
in Alaska.
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About glaciers
 Portage glacier is slowly retreating, forming Portage lake, a roadside tourist attraction just south of Anchorage, Alaska. © Patrick J. Endres
A recent concern is that Alaska's glaciers are shrinking,
possibly related to a warming climate. After analyzing
more than 2,000 glaciers in 11 mountain ranges and three
archipelagos -- including 780 glaciers that have names
-- federal glaciologists Bruce Molnia found that only
about a dozen of the large, named glaciers have advanced
during the past few years. We see this trend as glaciers
that were once tidewater no longer reach the ocean. While
this trend has been happening for several centuries, the
effects appear to be happening more rapidly
 Fireweed in full bloom, Brotherhood Park, Mendenhall glacier, Juneau, Alaska. Mendenhall glacier terminus, Juneau, Alaska. © Patrick J. Endres
Ice fields and an estimated 100,000 glaciers cover 5
percent of Alaska's surface and they are easily viewed
by visitors to Juneau, Valdez, Whittier, Seward, Anchorage
or the Matanuska Valley.
The pure-water runoff from the 27 mile-long Matanuska
glacier is used for drinking for a large part of Anchorage,
Alaska's largest city, and the surrounding areas.
Malaspina Glacier is the largest glacier in the state,
with an area of 1,500 square miles and extending 50 miles
from Mount St. Elias toward the Gulf of Alaska.
Glaciation of the Chugach Mountains and Prince William Sound
 Nunatak Mountain and Columbia glacier, Chugach mountains Prince William Sound, Alaska. © Patrick J. Endres
Recently, glaciologists examining sediments in the Gulf
of Alaska have discovered evidence of glaciation over
the past 5 million years. They suspect the area has been
glaciated for nearly 15 million years. Few other places
on the planet have experienced such a prolonged period
of glaciation. In cooler periods, glaciers covered all
of the coastal plateau. During warmer periods, they retreated
to the mountains.
 Tidewater Barry glacier calves into Prince William Sound waters. " © Patrick J. Endres
About 20,000 years ago, the Earth's climate cooled and
the last of the great Pleistocene ice age glaciers advanced
down from the Chugach Mountains. Glaciers formed in the
stream beds of the coastal plateau and carved deep valleys.
When the glaciers receded about 12,000 years ago, they
had scoured the Earth's crust do |
