Agassiz Glacier is in
Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
. It is named after
Louis Agassiz
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history.
Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...
, a Swiss-American glaciologist. The glacier is situated in a
cirque
A (; from the Latin word ') is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from Scottish Gaelic , meaning a pot or cauldron) and (; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform ...
to the southeast of
Kintla Peak
Kintla Peak () is a pyramidal peak in the Livingston Range of Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana. It is the tallest mountain in the Livingston Range and the third-tallest in the park. It is also the most northerly peak and land ar ...
west of the
Continental Divide
A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...
.
Agassiz Glacier is one of several glaciers that have been selected for monitoring by the
U.S. Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and ...
's Glacier Monitoring Research program, which is researching changes to the
mass balance
In physics, a mass balance, also called a material balance, is an application of conservation of mass to the analysis of physical systems. By accounting for material entering and leaving a system, mass flows can be identified which might have bee ...
of glaciers in and surrounding Glacier National Park.
The glacier is being monitored using remote sensing equipment and
repeat photography
Repeat may refer to:
* Rerun, a rebroadcast of an episode of a radio or television program
* Repeated sequence (DNA), a pattern of nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) that occurs in multiple copies throughout the genome
** CRISPR
* The smallest rectangle t ...
, where images of the glacier are taken from identical locations periodically.
Tree ring
Dendrochronology (or tree-ring dating) is the scientific method of dating tree rings (also called growth rings) to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmos ...
samples have also been used previously to determine the extent of glacier retreat. Between 1966 and 2005, Agassiz Glacier lost a third of its surface area.
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See also
*List of glaciers in the United States
This is a list of glaciers existing in the United States, currently or in recent centuries. These glaciers are located in nine states, all in the Rocky Mountains or farther west. The southernmost named glacier among them is the Lilliput Glacier ...
*Glaciers in Glacier National Park (U.S.)
There are at least 35 named glaciers in Glacier National Park (U.S.). At the end of the Little Ice Age about 1850, the area containing the national park had 150 glaciers. There are 25 active glaciers remaining in the park as of 2022. Since the l ...
References
Glaciers of Flathead County, Montana
Glaciers of Glacier National Park (U.S.)
Glaciers of Montana
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