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A United Nations delegation will travel to Glacier National Park and the North Fork to see for itself the threats of mining and coal bed methane development could have on the Park. Meeting in Spain last week the 21-member United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's World Heritage Committee voted unanimously to send a mission to Waterton-Glacier and the Canadian Flathead. American and Canadian interests were in Spain last week to lobby UNESCO to list Glacier as a "World Heritage Site in Danger" — a dubious distinction as Glacier nears its 100th birthday. Will Hammerquist, the Glacier representative of the...

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (June 14) – Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier is one of only a few ice fields worldwide that have withstood rising global temperatures. Nourished by Andean snowmelt, the glacier constantly grows even as it spawns icebergs the size of apartment buildings into a frigid lake, maintaining a nearly perfect equilibrium since measurements began more than a century ago.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier is one of only a few ice fields worldwide that have withstood rising global temperatures. Nourished by Andean snowmelt, the glacier constantly grows even as it spawns icebergs the size of apartment buildings into a frigid lake, maintaining a nearly perfect equilibrium since measurements began more than a century ago. "We're not sure why this happens," said Andres Rivera, a glacialist with the Center for Scientific Studies in Valdivia, Chile. "But not all glaciers respond equally to climate change."

I was looking at an image of New Zealand from space, and I noticed a bright blue lake on the South Island. I was pretty sure why it was blue (suspended glacial flour, like Lake Louise in Banff), but I checked to make sure. Turns out, as are many bright blue scenic mountain lakes around the world, this is a scenic spot. If I ever take a trip to New Zealand, I'm pretty sure I'd run out of time before I ran out of places to see! So here's a variety of views of that lake, New Zealand's Lake Pukaki....

Gushing from a glacier, rust-stained Blood Falls contains evidence that microbes have survived in prehistoric seawater deep under ice for perhaps millions of years, a new study says. The colony of microscopic life-forms may have been trapped when Antarctica's then advancing Taylor Glacier reached into the ocean 1.5 to 4 million years ago. What's more, the tiny organisms' feeding habits apparently give the falls their shocking color. Blood Falls, Scientists Jump For decades researchers have been intrigued by Blood Falls, which incongruously spills from one of the driest parts of Antarctica, the aptly named Dry Valleys. "The Dry Valleys are...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A falling chunk of glacier crushed two brothers to death at a popular tourist spot, and one remained buried under ice blocks the size of large vehicles, police said Friday. The two Australians apparently ignored rope barriers set up to prevent hikers from wandering into dangerous areas.

A team of Penn State scientists has discovered a new ultra-small species of bacteria that has survived for more than 120,000 years within the ice of a Greenland glacier at a depth of nearly two miles. The microorganism's ability to persist in this low-temperature, high-pressure, reduced-oxygen, and nutrient-poor habitat makes it particularly useful for studying how life, in general, can survive in a variety of extreme environments on Earth and possibly elsewhere in the solar system. The work will be presented by Jennifer Loveland-Curtze, a senior research associate in the laboratory led by Jean Brenchley, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular...

Melting alpine glaciers are revealing fascinating clues to Neolithic life in the high mountains... Everyone knows the story of Oetzi the Ice Man, found in an Austrian glacier in 1991. Oetzi was discovered at an altitude of over 3,000m. He lived in about 3,300 BC, leading to speculation that the Alps may have had more human habitation than previously suspected. Now, more dramatic findings from the 2,756m Schnidejoch glacier in Switzerland have confirmed the theory. It all started at the end of the long hot summer of 2003, when a Swiss couple, hiking across a melting Schnidejoch, came across a...

New satellite images reveal that a massive ice chunk recently broken away from one of Greenland's glaciers, which researchers say will continue to disintegrate within the next year. Scientists at Ohio State University monitoring daily NASA satellite images of Greenland's glaciers discovered that an 11-square-mile (29-square-kilometer) piece of the Petermann Glacier broke away between July 10 and 24. The chunk was about half the size of Manhattan. They announced their finding today. Glaciers are large, slow-moving rivers of ice, formed at the poles and in alpine regions by layers of compacted snow. The Petermann Glacier is one of the approximately...

I've been to the Pacific NW a few times, and Mount Adams has always fascinated me. It's very prominent from Mount Saint Helens, and the face of the mountain is dominated by a deep opening which harbors Adams Glacier. The funny thing is, very few pictures of the mountain give a good impression of the side with the glacier. Anyway, here's a couple views of it. I didn't realized that Mount Adams is the second-highest peak in Washington State after Rainier. Adams Glacier This one shows it, but it's lower resolution that I would like. This one is pretty good....

Scientists tantalize with 'iceman' findings Darah Hansen, Vancouver Sun Published: Friday, April 04, 2008 Scientists from around the world who have been studying the centuries-old human remains that melted out of a glacier in northwestern British Columbia in 1999 will gather for the first time in Victoria later this month to talk about what they've learned from the unnamed "iceman." The Kwäday Dän Ts'ìnchi Symposium will be held April 24-27 at the University of Victoria. It is being held in conjunction with the Northwest Anthropology Conference. The conference brings together more than 30 researchers from fields as diverse as archeology,...

Scientist Chases Fast-Melting Tropical Glaciers Charles J. Hanley in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea Associated PressJanuary 14, 2008 For 5,000 years, great tongues of ice have spread over some of the tallest slopes of tropical New Guinea—the remotest reaches of this remote tropical island. Now those glaciers are melting, and Lonnie Thompson must reach them before they're gone. To the American glaciologist, the ancient ice is a vanishing "archive" of the story of El Niño, the equatorial phenomenon driving much of the world's climate. More than that, the little-explored glaciers are a last unknown for a mountaineering scientist who for...

It is estimated that at the Battle of the Somme in World War I, one million soldiers were killed or wounded. The men were subjected to continuous bombing and machine-gun fire, engaged in hand-to-hand combat, as well as endured poison gas attacks. On the most hideous day of the fight, the British lost over 50,000 troops. It has been called one of the bloodiest battles in all of history. It is not surprising, therefore, that a few of survivors reacted negatively, and experienced shell-shock, which is a complete mental breakdown. Incidentally, the term originated in that war. So it is...

A Norwegian cruise ship carrying some 300 people lost engine power during an electrical outage and struck an Antarctic glacier, smashing a lifeboat but causing no injuries... The MS Fram hit the ice late Friday near Browns Bluff in the Antarctic... The engine started again and the liner continued to King George Island for an inspection. "We hit a glacier. We have damage to a starboard lifeboat and a little bit forward," ... the ship apparently suffered no serious damage. Hansen said the power outage lasted 40 to 50 minutes and sent the vessel adrift against the glacier, where it...

Melting Glacier Reveals Ancient Tree Stumps LiveScience.com Tue Oct 30, 2:15 PM ET Melting glaciers in Western Canada are revealing tree stumps up to 7,000 years old where the region's rivers of ice have retreated to a historic minimum, a geologist said today. Johannes Koch of The College of Wooster in Ohio found the fresh-looking, intact tree stumps beside retreating glaciers in Garibaldi Provincial Park, about 40 miles (60 kilometers) north of Vancouver, British Columbia. Radiocarbon dating of the wood from the stumps revealed the wood was far from fresh—some of it dated back to within a few thousand years...

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistan said on Monday it had lodged protests with Britain and India over a joint military exercise in the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir. Britain's Royal Marines last week kicked off 25 days of joint high-altitude exercises with the Indian army in the northern Ladakh region, which is part of Indian-administered Kashmir. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan each hold part of Kashmir but lay claim to all of it. Kashmir has sparked two of their three wars since independence 60 years ago. "We have sent demarches to both the British government and the Indian government," foreign ministry spokeswoman...

India opens up strategic glacier in Himalayas to tourists NEW DELHI, September 14 (RIA Novosti) - India has opened up a strategic glacier in the Himalayas to tourists, the Defense Ministry said. At 5,000 to 7,000 meters above sea level, the Siachen glacier is the highest battlefield in the world. It has been contested by India and Pakistan since 1984, when the Indian Army occupied it. The ministry said the glacier was being opened up because a recent thaw in Indian-Pakistani relations had made it possible, and because the area represented "an ideal venue for tourism." The glacier, which is...

In fact, as reported by Sacramento's CBS affiliate Sunday, glaciers on California's Mount Shasta have grown by 30 percent in the past 50 years (video available here): JOHN IANDER, CBS 13 REPORTER: Big mountains often create their own weather patterns, and this giant, Mount Shasta, at 14,162 feet seems to have a mind of its own these days. Shasta has seven glaciers. The biggest is this one on the middle, Whitney Glacier. What has surprised scientists about the glacier is that if the theories about global warming are true, it ought to be shrinking, but it's not. And this one...

OSLO (Reuters) - A chunk of an Arctic glacier broke into the sea and triggered a huge wave that injured 18 people on a sightseeing boat, almost all of them British tourists, Norwegian officials said on Thursday. Four people were seriously hurt in the accident by Hornbreen glacier on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and were flown south to a hospital in Tromsoe on the mainland. The others were treated at a local hospital, mostly for minor injuries. "The glacier calved (split off) and a big wave washed over the boat," Elisabeth Bjoerge Loevold, acting governor of Svalbard, told Reuters....

Glaciers Growing in France, Switzerland, and Washington: Will Media Care?Posted by Noel Sheppard One of the pet peeves of anthropogenic global warming skeptics is how the media and climate change alarmists like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore only address events supporting that which they conflate and abuse data to prove.A perfect example is the discussion concerning receding glaciers, as these folks will either ignore when such recession began, or the other possible environmental issues that many scientists believe to be responsible.Maybe even worse, the media alarmists will always ignore information that might throw a monkey wrench into the position they’re trying to...