1. Kenai Fjords National Park
DMoutoux & Earth Science Class of 2015

2. Where is Kenai Fjords National Park?

3. Why Visit Kenai Fjords National Park?
View arctic marine wildlife
Visit fjords and glaciers
Sea kayak, hike, backpack
Find solitude – most of the park is inaccessible by car

4. How Plate Tectonics Affect the Park …
Southern coast of Alaska lies along a convergent plate boundary
Pacific Plate subducting beneath NA Plate
4 Active Volcanoes on the Kenai Peninsula
Large & frequent earthquakes
One of the largest recorded earthquakes, MR 9.2 struck nearby in 1964

5. Plate Tectonics Affects Rock Type …
Pillow Basalts from Volcanoes
Plate Tectonics Affects Rock Type …

6. Plate Tectonics Affects Rock Type …
Batholith
Magma that cools Underground
Granodiorite (like granite, but darker)
Plate Tectonics Affects Rock Type …

7. Plate Tectonics Affects Rock Type …
Accreted Terranes
Foreign land transported by the Pacific Plate and scraped off on the coast
Chert & Basalt from the ocean floor
Limestone (old coral reef)

8. Plate Tectonics Affects Rock Type …
Produces Fractures
Injected with superheated water carrying minerals
Iron, silica (quartz), arsenic, and gold

9. Kenai Fjord National Park Today …
Half the park covered in ice
Glaciers originate in the Harding Ice Field

10. Kenai Fjord’s Past …
About 30,000 year ago, the entire Kenai Peninsula was covered by an ice sheet, much like Greendland or Antarctica
West Antarctic Ice Sheet

11. Kenai Fjord’s Past … Elevation was higher
Tectonic action is causing subsidence (slow sinking)
Diagram shows subsidence following the earthquake

12. Mechanical Weathering & Erosion by …
Glaciers
Waves

13. How Glaciers Form Abundant snowfall Cool summers Vertical relief
Harding Icefield receives 60 feet of snow per year.
Cool summers
More snow accumulates than melts
Air squeezed out as snow accumulates
Becomes glacial ice in 4-10 years.
Vertical relief
To allow flow downhill
Tremendous weight of glacier crushes and abrades rock
Flow transport debris downhill.

14. Glacier-carved Features
U-Shaped Valleys

15. Glacier-carved Features
Morraines – Piles of eroded rock left by retreating glaciers

16. Glacier-carved Features
Glacial Marks

17. Glacier-carved Features
Fjords – a long, narrow, deep glacier-carved valley filled by ocean water
Found only in Norway, Greenland, New Zealand, Chile, and Alaska

18. How Does a Glacier Carve a Fjord?
Glaciers carve deep u-shaped valleys, but stop at the edge of the ocean
During an ice age, ocean water levels are much lower, so valleys can be longer
After the ice age, water level rises and fills the long, narrow, and deep u-shaped valley.

19. Wave-carved Features Pounding surf erodes the coast
Softer rock (limestone) far more susceptible than basalts and granodiorite

20. Kenai Fjord’s Future Near Future - Embattled glaciers
3% decrease in area of Harding Ice Field in the last 16 years
Estimated 40 cubic miles of glacial loss in Alaska annually
1000’s of Years Gradual filling of fjords
Sediments accumulate at rates of up to a foot a year.
Fjords that are 600 to 1000 feet deep could be filled within the next couple thousand years.
Long Term - Continued subsidence
The ocean will slowly encroach on the park.

21. Bibliography
More, Inventory And Monitoring Network Learn about the various projects being studied. Read. National Parks Service. 19 Jan National Parks Service. 12 Feb <
"Geomorphology." Geomorphology. 12 Feb < hysical/geomorph.htm>.
"Moraine on Pederson Glacier, Aialik Bay, Kenai Fjords NP, Alaska." Panoramio. 12 Feb <
"McCarty Fjord and glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska - aerial photograph (aat)."Panoramio. 12 Feb <
"Glaciers: Earth’s Rivers of Ice — Icebergs and Glaciers — Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears."Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears Glaciers Earths Rivers of Ice Comments. 12 Feb < glaciers/glaciers-earths-rivers-of-ice>.

22. Bibliography
"West Antarctic Ice Sheet Science Traverse." : The Ice. 12 Feb <
"Harding Icefield." Photo Blog Photography Blog for Niebrugge Images Harding Icefield Comments. 12 Feb <
"LARRY'S RAMBLE." : Feb < l>.
"Kurt Friehauf - Alaska 2011 project description - Kenai FjordsNational Park." Kurt Friehauf - Alaska 2011 project description - Kenai FjordsNational Park. 12 Feb < ds/>.