The Glaciers of Yosemite National Park Essay -- Geology

The Glaciers of Yosemite National Park One of natures most fibrous and influential forces is also one of natures coldest and slowest processes. These great icy rivers ar call(a)ed glaciers and have formed some of the most beautiful scenery on this planet. These enormous frozen bodies of water are often thousands of feet wide and lately and many miles long. They cover millions of acres of demean and drastically change the land into beautiful mountains with many amazing features. One of the areas where glaciers have been most influential is in Yosemite National Park in California. Here almost all(prenominal) glacial feature is shown. However, before this information about glaciers in Yosemite was clear, in that respect was the Yosemite Controversy with arguments of different views of how the valley originated. Glaciers are best described in this passage by naturalist John Muir (Bailey) (Guyton)The work of glaciers, especially the stir up they have played in sculpturing the face of the earth, is as yet simply little understood, because they have so few loving observers willing to continue with them long enough to appreciate them. Water rivers work openly where heap dwell, and so does the rain and the dew, and the great salt sea embracing all the world and even the universal ocean of air, though invisible, yet it speaks clamorously in a thousand voices, and explains its modes of working and its power. But glaciers, back in their cold solitudes, work apart from men, exerting their tremendous energies in silence and darkness. Outspread, spirit-like, they incubate above the long predestined landscapes, working on unwearied though unmeasured ages, until, in the fullness of time, the mountains and valleys and plains are brought forth, channels furrowed for the rive... ... which shape the valley even more. Rockfall has shaped the Royal Arches and Mirror Lake. Recently in July of 1996, there was a large rock fall and in January of 1997 the Merced River make full proving that the geology of Yosemite is a forever changing process that still goes on to this day. (Guyton)BibliographyBailey, Ronald H. satellite Earth Glacier. Time-Life Books Alexandria, 1982.Guyton, Bill. Glaciers of California. University of California Press Berkeley, 1998.Huber, N. King. The Geologic Story of Yosemite National Park. Yosemite linkupYosemite National Park, 1989.Lutgens, Fredrick K. and Edward J. Tarbuck. Earth Science. Prentice Hall UpperSaddle River, 2002.Matthes, Francois E. The peculiar Valley. University of California PressBerkeley, 1950.Tierney, Tim. Geology of the Mono Basin. Kutsavi Press Lee Vining, 1995.