Lituya Mountain is a peak in the

Fairweather Range The Fairweather Range is the unofficial name for a mountain range located in the U.S. state of Alaska and the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is the southernmost range of the Saint Elias Mountains. The northernmost section of the range is ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

, United States, south of

Mount Fairweather Mount Fairweather (officially gazetted as Fairweather Mountain in Canada but referred to as Mount Fairweather), is the highest mountain in the Canadian province of British Columbia, with an elevation of . It is located east of the Pacific Ocean ...

. Its eastern slopes feed a branch of the

Johns Hopkins Glacier Johns Hopkins Glacier is a long glacier located in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in the U.S. state of Alaska. It begins on the east slopes of Lituya Mountain and Mount Salisbury, and trends east to the head of Johns Hopkins Inlet, sout ...

, which flows into

Glacier Bay Glacier Bay Basin in southeastern Alaska, in the United States, encompasses the Glacier Bay and surrounding mountains and glaciers, which was first proclaimed a U.S. National Monument on February 25, 1925, and which was later, on December 2, 1980 ...

. On its western side is a large

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 ...

, shared with Mount Fairweather, Mount Quincy Adams, and Mount Salisbury, which heads the

Fairweather Glacier Fairweather Glacier is a long glacier in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in the U.S. state of Alaska. It begins on the west slope of Mount Salisbury and continues west to its 1961 terminus 0.2 miles (300 m) east of Cape Fairweather, 100 ...

; this flows almost to the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

coast at

Cape Fairweather Cape Fairweather is a cape in Antarctica that is high and is ice-covered except for rocky exposures along its southeast and east sides. It lies midway between Drygalski Glacier and Evans Glacier on the east coast of Graham Land and divides Norden ...

. The

Lituya Glacier Lituya Glacier is a tidewater glacier in the U.S. state of Alaska. Located at inside Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, its source is in the Fairweather Range and it feeds into Lituya Bay on the gulf coast of Southeast Alaska. It is partiall ...

flows from the south side of the mountain into

Lituya Bay Lituya Bay (; Tlingit: ''Ltu.aa'',. Spelled L'tua in translation of Tebenkov's log. meaning 'lake within the point') is a fjord located on the coast of the south-east part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is long and wide at its widest point. ...

on the Pacific coast. Though not exceptional in terms of absolute elevation, Lituya Mountain does possess great vertical relief over local terrain. For example, the south side of the mountain drops to the Lituya Glacier in approximately , and the southeast side drops the same distance in just over . Lituya Mountain is not often climbed, partly due to its proximity to the higher and better-known Mount Fairweather, and partly due to difficult access and bad weather in the Fairweather Range. The Lituya name was published in 1852 as ''G(ora) L'tua'', meaning "Lituya Mountain" in Russian by

Mikhail Tebenkov Mikhail Dmitriyevich Tebenkov (russian: Михаил Дмитриевич Тебеньков; also Tebenkof; 1802 – April 3, 1872) was a Russian hydrographer and vice admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy. From 1845 to 1850, he served as directo ...

of the

Imperial Russian Navy The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a ...

History

1958 earthquake

On July 9, 1958, an earthquake along the

Fairweather Fault The Queen Charlotte Fault is an active transform fault that marks the boundary of the North American plate and the Pacific plate. It is Canada's right-lateral strike-slip equivalent to the San Andreas Fault to the south in California. The Queen Ch ...

loosened about 40 million cubic yards of rock above Lituya Bay. The impact of this enormous volume of rock falling from approximately produced locally the largest recorded tsunami (an estimated high) and devastated the entire bay. The wave destroyed lands and trees up to above sea level around the bay. The edge located to the west of the Gilbert Inlet at the bottom of the Lituya Glacier (point opposite to the rock impact in the water) was the most affected place.

2012 landslide

On June 11, 2012, there was another enormous

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated grade (slope), slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of ...

at the base of the mountain. At long and wide, now spread across the Johns Hopkins Glacier, it is possibly the largest recorded in North America. Other than registering as a magnitude 3.4 quake, it went unnoticed for a month until discovered by a pilot flying over the glacier.

References

External links

{{Portal, Alaska, Mountains
Lituya Mountain on Topozone

Lituya Mountain on bivouac.com

World's Biggest Tsunami: The largest recorded tsunami with a wave 1720 feet tall in Lituya Bay, Alaska
2012 in Alaska Landforms of Hoonah–Angoon Census Area, Alaska Landslides in 2012 Landslides in the United States Mountains of Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve Mountains of Unorganized Borough, Alaska Natural disasters in Alaska Saint Elias Mountains

History

1958 earthquake

2012 landslide

See also

References

External links