Grand Tetons - Glaciers

The Grand Teton National Park is also a terrific place for a wandering Australian to get a good look at the remnants of the last ice age. Invisible in Australia to the untrained eye, the ravages of massed ice are still being wrought upon this landscape every day. The glaciers are shrinking, but several remain and continue to carve great cavities in the teeth of the Teton mountain range.



These mountains were forced up by massive tectonic activity that continues to this day. These mountains are the spotty adolescents of the geological world. This area could have a tantrum, take lots of drugs or get itself knocked up (or, in this case, down) at any moment. It's kind of exciting to stand there and try to feel vibrations through the rocks (there weren't any).

The trail of grey debris that you can see descending from the glacier is called a terminal moraine. The slow flow of the glacier grinds away massive quantities of gravel from the face of the mountain which is then carried out from under the glacier. The ice at the bottom of the glacier melts under the weight and friction of the moving glacier against the rock and the melt conveys the rubble out the bottom and sides of the ice.

Here you can see a mountain with exactly the kind of molar cavity appearance that is created by glaciers. The glaciers, alas, are no longer with us, but there is still plenty of evidence of their work.