Tencho Glacier is a mountain glacier in northwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is located inside

Mount Edziza Provincial Park Mount Edziza Provincial Park is a provincial park in Cassiar Land District of northern British Columbia, Canada. It was established on 27 July 1972 to protect the Mount Edziza volcanic complex and the surrounding Tahltan Highland. Geography The p ...

on the Tahltan Highland, an upland area of the

Stikine Plateau The Stikine Plateau is a plateau in northern British Columbia, Canada. It lies between the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains on the west and southwest and the Cassiar Mountains along its northeast, and between the Skeena Mountains on its sout ...

. Tencho Glacier is the source of several small streams that flow from the Mount Edziza volcanic complex.

Etymology

The name of the glacier was suggested by the Geological Survey of Canada on November 15, 1979, and eventually became official on November 24, 1980. ''Tencho'' is derived from the

Tahltan The Tahltan or Nahani are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group who live in northern British Columbia around Telegraph Creek, Dease Lake, and Iskut. The Tahltan constitute the fourth division of the ''Nahane' ...

words ''ten'' and ''cho'', which mean ''ice'' and ''big'' or ''great'' respectively. This glacier is so-named because it is the largest glacier of the Mount Edziza volcanic complex.

Geography

Tencho Glacier originates from

Ice Peak Ice Peak is a stratovolcano, located west of Tatogga and south of Mount Edziza, British Columbia, Canada. It overlaps the 7.5-million-year-old Armadillo Peak. It lies on a large volcanic plateau, which is made of basaltic lava flows from the ...

and Tennena Cone on the southern flank of Mount Edziza. Its southern terminus is surrounded by Kaia Bluff in the southeast,

Coffee Crater Coffee Crater is a well-preserved cinder cone south of Mount Edziza, British Columbia, Canada. It was formed during the Holocene period. It is within the Snowshoe lava field, part of the Mount Edziza volcanic complex. See also *List of volcano ...

in the south and

Cocoa Crater Cocoa Crater is a cinder cone in the Stikine Country of northwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is located 38 km southeast of Telegraph Creek and southwest of Mount Edziza. Cocoa Crater is one of the 30 cinder cones around the Mount Edziz ...

in the southwest. Unnamed tributaries of Taweh Creek originate from the southwestern side of Tencho Glacier between Cocoa Crater and Coffee Crater. Shaman Creek originates from the southern end of Tencho Glacier whereas the eastern side of Tencho Glacier is drained by unnamed tributaries of Tennaya Creek. Several unnamed tributaries of Sezill Creek originate from the western side of Tencho Glacier by Tennena Cone.

Geology

Tencho Glacier overlies the Ice Peak Formation, one of several geological formations comprising the Mount Edziza volcanic complex.

Obsidian Obsidian () is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock. Obsidian is produced from felsic lava, rich in the lighter elements s ...

of the Ice Peak Formation occurs east and west of Tencho Glacier and possibly extends under the glacier. Beds of coarse

comenditic Comendite is a hard, peralkaline igneous rock, a type of light blue grey rhyolite. Phenocrysts are sodic sanidine with minor albite and bipyramidal quartz. Iddings, Joseph Paxson, 1913, ''Igneous rocks: composition, texture and classification'', v ...

trachyte pumice belonging to the Sheep Track Member of the Big Raven Formation are exposed along the western edge of Tencho Glacier. They are up to thick and were deposited by an eruption that probably originated from a deep, circular depression on the surface of Tencho Glacier north of Coffee Crater. A crescent-shaped ridge at the southern terminus of Tencho Glacier might be a glacially modified tuff ring that formed in a meltwater lake when the glacier extended onto the

Big Raven Plateau The Big Raven Plateau is a volcanic plateau, lava plateau in northern British Columbia, Canada, located west of Mount Edziza in Mount Edziza Provincial Park. It is part of the Tahltan Highland, which is the southwestern sub-region of the Stikine P ...

References

{{Mount Edziza volcanic complex Glaciers of Mount Edziza