Snow turning to ice, accumulating sometimes for decades, sometimes for centuries, sometimes for millennia: Glaciers take on two basic forms, those that are widespread continental sheets up to three miles thick and those that are river-like because they occupy U-shaped mountain valleys mostly of their own making. Both move as they are pulled by gravity and pushed by the growing mass at the point of origin. In accumulating and in moving, glaciers do work by plowing, gouging, and depressing the land under their great weight. When they melt, they leave behind rock debris, gouges, and lakes on an altered landscape.
If we could take away Greenland’s glaciers, we could see the depth of depression, land so burdened by ice it lies below sea level. Above the depressed surface a cover of ice rises thousands of feet. If we could take away the rivers of ice that occupy mountain valleys, we could see steps carved into the mountains. Over the last two million years glaciers have radically changed the high-to-middle latitude continents. They have even shaped the top of Kilimanjaro’s peak as it stands over the sweltering plains below, and their melt waters have reshaped islands in the tropics.
A casual visit to a glacier reveals little to the untrained eye. Is it a motionless mass of cold? How can it be doing any work? Glaciologists and geomorphologists can assure you that indeed it is doing work. Stick around. You’ll see changes in both ice and landscape. Visit America’s upper Midwest. See the hummocky ground, the lakes, the peat bogs? All there because of ancient glaciers. Visit the Great Lakes. They are there because of ancient glaciers. Look at the sculpted mass of rock in Yosemite. Again, glaciers were the scuptors. And when the ice accumulated on the continents, the oceans fell, having given their water to the glaciers. Indonesia, far from the glaciers, was largely connected; there was a Bering Land Bridge, also, that served as an avenue for migration for the earliest Americans. When the glaciers melted, the seas rose, and the isolated animal species and human ancestors give testimony to the far-reaching effects of ice. Where once they walked, the ocean now covers and serves as a barrier. We live and walk on landscapes shaped by glaciers, even in the tropics.
As glaciers reshape the land so cold indifference works on the human landscape in unseen ways, slowly changing it, but changing it nevertheless. Abandoned children, abandoned spouses and lovers, abandoned elderly, abandoned homeless, abandoned addicts, abandoned slaves, abandoned ethnic groups: All are changed by the accumulating cold. All are depressed under the weight of apathy. Look out over the human landscape. No generation in 10,000 has escaped the effects of such ice. Each glacial advance alters the next generation, leaves debris on the human landscape, or, in melting, isolates with inundating water, making islands where once there were human connections. Such ice has probably influenced human evolution as much as “ice ages.”
When we ignore those in need, are we glacial? Among families, between spouses, and in society, ice does its work to separate us, leaves debris in our lives, and reshapes relationships. In some way, all of us have been shaped by accumulations of ice in past generations. Are we the glaciers shaping the future of humanity? Is every age an Ice Age?
If we could take away Greenland’s glaciers, we could see the depth of depression, land so burdened by ice it lies below sea level. Above the depressed surface a cover of ice rises thousands of feet. If we could take away the rivers of ice that occupy mountain valleys, we could see steps carved into the mountains. Over the last two million years glaciers have radically changed the high-to-middle latitude continents. They have even shaped the top of Kilimanjaro’s peak as it stands over the sweltering plains below, and their melt waters have reshaped islands in the tropics.
A casual visit to a glacier reveals little to the untrained eye. Is it a motionless mass of cold? How can it be doing any work? Glaciologists and geomorphologists can assure you that indeed it is doing work. Stick around. You’ll see changes in both ice and landscape. Visit America’s upper Midwest. See the hummocky ground, the lakes, the peat bogs? All there because of ancient glaciers. Visit the Great Lakes. They are there because of ancient glaciers. Look at the sculpted mass of rock in Yosemite. Again, glaciers were the scuptors. And when the ice accumulated on the continents, the oceans fell, having given their water to the glaciers. Indonesia, far from the glaciers, was largely connected; there was a Bering Land Bridge, also, that served as an avenue for migration for the earliest Americans. When the glaciers melted, the seas rose, and the isolated animal species and human ancestors give testimony to the far-reaching effects of ice. Where once they walked, the ocean now covers and serves as a barrier. We live and walk on landscapes shaped by glaciers, even in the tropics.
As glaciers reshape the land so cold indifference works on the human landscape in unseen ways, slowly changing it, but changing it nevertheless. Abandoned children, abandoned spouses and lovers, abandoned elderly, abandoned homeless, abandoned addicts, abandoned slaves, abandoned ethnic groups: All are changed by the accumulating cold. All are depressed under the weight of apathy. Look out over the human landscape. No generation in 10,000 has escaped the effects of such ice. Each glacial advance alters the next generation, leaves debris on the human landscape, or, in melting, isolates with inundating water, making islands where once there were human connections. Such ice has probably influenced human evolution as much as “ice ages.”
When we ignore those in need, are we glacial? Among families, between spouses, and in society, ice does its work to separate us, leaves debris in our lives, and reshapes relationships. In some way, all of us have been shaped by accumulations of ice in past generations. Are we the glaciers shaping the future of humanity? Is every age an Ice Age?
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