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The Cordilleran ice sheet was a major ice sheet that covered, during glacial periods of the Quaternary, a large area of North America. This area included: An ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km² (19,305 mile²). The only current ice sheets are Antarctic and Greenland; during the last ice age at Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Laurentide ice sheet covered much of Canada...
Jump to: navigation, search The Quaternary Period is the geologic time period from the end of the Pliocene Epoch roughly 1. ...
Jump to: navigation, search World map showing North America (geographically) A satellite composite image of North America North America is a continent in the northern hemisphere, bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and...
The ice sheet covered up to two and a half million square kilometres at the Last Glacial Maximum and probably more than that in some previous periods such as the Kansan Glaciation, when it may have extended into the northeast extremity of Oregon and the Salmon River Mountains in Idaho. It is probable, though, that its northern margin was further south due to the influence of starvation caused by very low levels of precipitation. Western Montana may mean: Western Montana College of The University of Montana Western region of the state of Montana. ...
The Idaho Panhandle is the northern region of the US State Idaho which encompasses the ten northernmost counties of Benewah, Bonner, Boundary, Clearwater, Idaho, Kootenai, Latah, Lewis, Nez Perce, Shoshone. ...
State nickname: The Evergreen State Other U.S. States Capital Olympia Largest city Seattle Governor Christine Gregoire (D) Senators Patty Murray (D) Maria Cantwell (D) Official languages None Area 184,824 km² (18th) - Land 172,587 km² - Water 12,237 km² (6. ...
City nickname Emerald City City bird Great Blue Heron City flower Dahlia City mottos The City of Flowers The City of Goodwill City song Seattle, the Peerless City Mayor Greg Nickels County King County Area - Total - Land - Water - % water 369. ...
For the city, see Spokane, Washington For the county, see Spokane County, Washington For the Native American tribe, see Spokane (people) or Spokane Indian Reservation For the movie, see Spokane (2004) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
Motto: Splendor Sine Occasu (Splendour without diminishment) Other Canadian provinces and territories Capital Victoria Largest city Vancouver Lieutenant Governor Iona Campagnolo Premier Gordon Campbell (BC Liberal) Area 944,735 km² (5th) * Land 925,186 km² * Water 19,549 km² (2. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Motto: none Other Canadian provinces and territories Capital Whitehorse Largest city Whitehorse Commissioner Jack Cable Premier Dennis Fentie (Yukon Party) Area 482,443 km² (9th) • Land 474,391 km² • Water 8,052 km² (1. ...
Inland view of the Alaska Panhandle The Alaska Panhandle is the coast of the American state of Alaska, just west of the British Columbia province of Canada. ...
South Central Alaska consists of the portion of the state of Alaska, United States of America, from the shorelines and uplands of the Gulf of Alaska. ...
Volcanoes on the Alaska Peninsula The Alaska Peninsula is a peninsula on the mainland of Alaska at the beginning of the Aleutian Islands. ...
Jump to: navigation, search The continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent, which is covered during interglacial periods such as the current epoch by relatively shallow seas (known as shelf seas) and gulfs. ...
The Strait of Juan de Fuca separates Vancouver Island from the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. ...
Temperature proxies for the last 40,000 years The Last Glacial Maximum refers to the time of maximum extent of the ice sheets during the last glaciation, approximately 21 thousand years ago. ...
The Kansan Glaciation (known in UK as the Anglian Glaciation and sometimes referred to as the Illinoian Glaciation, Elster glaciation in northern Europe and the Mindel glaciation in the Alps) was a very severe glacial period in the Pleistocene. ...
Jump to: navigation, search State nickname: Beaver State Other U.S. States Capital Salem Largest city Portland Governor Ted Kulongoski (D) Senators Ron Wyden (D) Gordon Smith (R) Official languages None Area 255,026 km² (9th) - Land 248,849 km² - Water 6,177 km² (2. ...
In glaciology, starvation is said to occur when a glacier retreats not because of temperature increases, but due to precipitation being so low that ice flow downwards into the zone of ablation exceeds the replenishment from snowfall. ...
At its eastern end the Cordilleran ice sheet merged with the Laurentide ice sheet at the Continental Divide, forming an area of ice that contained one and a half times as much water as the Antarctic ice sheet does today. At its western end it is believed nowadays that several small glacial refugia existed during the last glacial maximum below present sea level in now-submerged Hecate Strait and on the Brooks Peninsula in northern Vancouver Island. However, evidence of ice-free refugia above present sea level north of the Olympic Peninsula has been refuted by genetic and geological studies since the middle 1990s. The ice sheet faded north of the Alaska Range because the climate was too dry to form glaciers. The Laurentide ice sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered hundreds of thousands of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the northern United States, between ~ 90,000 and ~ 18,000 years before the present day. ...
This article is about continental divides in general terms. ...
According to the British Antarctic Survey: The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. ...
For considerations of sea level change, in particular rise associated with possible global warming, see sea level rise. ...
The Hecate Strait or Strait of Hecate is a body of water that separates the Queen Charlotte Islands in the Pacific Ocean in British Columbia, Canada from the mainland. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Located off Canadas Pacific coast and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia Vancouver Island is, at 32,134 square kilometers (12,407 square miles), the largest island on the western side of the Americas. ...
The Olympic Peninsula is the large arm of land in western Washington state that lies across Puget Sound from Seattle. ...
Jump to: navigation, search The Alaska Range is a mountain range that extends for about 650 km (400 mi) across south-central Alaska, from Iliamna Lake at the SW end to White River in Canada at the SE end. ...
Austrias longest glacier, the Pasterze, winds its 8 km (5 mile) route at the foot of Austrias highest mountain, the Grossglockner A glacier is a large, long-lasting river of ice that is formed on land and moves in response to gravity. ...
Unlike the Laurentide ice sheet, which is believed to have taken as much as eleven thousand years to fully melt, it is believed the Cordilleran ice sheet, except for areas that remain glaciated today, melted very quickly, probably in four thousand years or less. This rapid melting caused such floods as the overflow of Lake Missoula and shaped the topography of the extremely fertile Inland Empire of Eastern Washington. A flood (in Old English flod, a word common to Teutonic languages; compare German Flut, Dutch vloed from the same root as is seen in flow, float) is an overflow of water, an expanse of water submerging land, a deluge. ...
Glacial Lake Missoula was a prehistoric proglacial lake in western Montana that existed periodically at the end of the last ice age between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. ...
The Inland Empire is a region in the Pacific Northwest centered around Spokane, Washington, including much of the surrounding Columbia River basin. ...
Eastern Washington is a region of the United States defined as that part of Washington state east of the Cascade Mountains. ...
Sea levels during glaciation
Because of the weight of the ice, the mainland of northwest North America was so depressed that sea levels at the Last Glacial Maximum were over a hundred metres higher than they are today (measured by the level of bedrock). Temperature proxies for the last 40,000 years The Last Glacial Maximum refers to the time of maximum extent of the ice sheets during the last glaciation, approximately 21 thousand years ago. ...
Bedrock is the native consolidated rock underlying the Earths surface. ...
However, on the western edge at the Queen Charlotte Islands (which, contrary to "popular" myths of ice-free refugia, were entirely glaciated during the LGM) the lower thickness of the ice sheet meant that sea levels were as much as 170 metres lower than they are today, forming a large lake in the deepest parts of the strait. This was because the thickness of the centre of the ice sheet actually served to push upwards areas at the edge of the continental shelf which, even though glaciated, were displaced and lifted by the pressing of the crust further inland. The effect of this during deglaciation was that sea levels on the edge of the ice sheet, which naturally deglaciated first, initially rose due to an increase in the volume of water, but later fell due to rebound after deglaciation. The Queen Charlotte Islands or Haida Gwaii are an archipelago off the north-west coast of British Columbia, Canada, consisting of two main islands: Graham Island in the North, and Moresby Island in the south. ...
Refuge has a number of meanings: Wildlife refuge National Wildlife Refuge, protected area in the United States Christian programme for teenagers run by Love In Action Buddhist religious practice This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
A lake is a body of water surrounded by land. ...
These effects are important because they have been used to explain how migrants to North America from Beringia were able to travel southward during the deglaciation process due purely to the exposure of submerged land between the mainland and numerous continental islands. They are also important for understanding the direction evolution has taken since the ice retreated. The Bering land bridge, also known as Beringia, was a land bridge roughly 1600 km (1000 miles) north to south at its greatest extent, which joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia at various times during the ice ages. ...
Jump to: navigation, search Charles Darwin, father of the theory of evolution by natural selection. ...
Even today, the region is notable for its rapid changes in sea level, which, however, have little effect on most of the coast due to the numerous fjords. Lysefjorden in Norway A fjord (pronounced FEE-ord or fyord, SAMPA: [fi:3:d] or [faI3:d]; sometimes written fiord) is a glacially overdeepened valley, usually narrow and steep-sided, extending below sea level and filled with salt water. ...
See also Jump to: navigation, search Continent North America Geographic coordinates 60°00′ N 95°00′ W Area - Total - Water Ranked 2nd 9,976,140 km² 755,170 km² (7. ...
An ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km² (19,305 mile²). The only current ice sheets are Antarctic and Greenland; during the last ice age at Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Laurentide ice sheet covered much of Canada...
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