The Columbia Icefield
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Highlights include:
- The Columbia Icefield is an incredible geological feature. It is a big accumulation
of snow and ice covering 325 square kilometers. To get a better idea of how
big The Columbia Icefield is, New York’s Central Park is about 3.4 square
kilometers, while Vancouver’s Stanley Park is about 4 km2 . You could
fit 81 Stanley Parks into the Columbia Icefield.
- In some places the Athabasca Glacier measures 300 metres deep. That’s
as tall as the Eiffel Tower.
- Out of the Columbia Icefield, flow several glaciers such as :Athabasca,
Columbia, Stutfield, Dome, Castleguard and Saskatchewan.
- Glaciers form in places where more snow accumulates annually than melts.
- At the poles, and in the highest places of the Earth’s mountains, the
snow that falls in winter does not always melt. Its deepens, layer after layer.
At a certain depth, 30 metres or so, the compressed snow slowly becomes ice.
Under its own weight, and in response to dictates of its own crystalline nature,
this ice moves. This is the glacier ice.
- The Columbia Icefield, produces its own weather. Thanks to gravity, cold
air that passes over an icefield gets pulled downhill creating a cold glacial
breeze.
- The water created by the direct melting of glacier ice, can be consumed
but not in large quantities. It can contain rock flour and other sediments
that can bother sensitive stomachs.
- Highest Point: Mt. Columbia, 3745 m (12,284 ft)
- Average Elevation: 3000 m (10,000 ft)
- Greatest Depth (estimated): 365 m (1200 ft)
- Average Snowfall: 7 m (23 ft) per year
- Drainage: Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic Oceans
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© 2012 Vancouver English Centre
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Last updated on Jan 18/07
at 19:50 PDT
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