Erratic or Glacier Erratic is a piece of rock that has been carried by glacial ice, often hundreds of kilometres. Characteristic of their massive size and improbable looking placement. Erratics are frequently seen around Whistler and Garibaldi Provincial Park. Either as bizarre curiosities or a place to relax in the sun. On a sunny day, a large sun-facing erratic will often be warm and sometimes even hot, providing a comfortable and surreal place to rest.
Ablation Zone Accumulation Zone Adit Lakes Aiguille Alpine Zone Arête ARRTI Armchair Glacier The Barrier Battleship Islands Bears Bench Bergschrund Bivouac Bungee Bridge Cairn/Inukshuk Carter,Neal Chimney Cirque Cloudraker Coast Douglas-fir Coast Mountains Col Columnar Jointing Cordilleran Cornice Corrie Lake Crevasse Dalgleish,Alec Deadfall Emerald Forest Erratic The Fissile Fitzsimmons Creek Fitzsimmons Range Fyles,Tom Garibaldi Ranges Garibaldi Volcanic Belt Gemel Glacier Window Green Lake Hoary Marmot Krummholz Lithophyte Lodgepole Pine Moraine Mt Garibaldi Mt James Turner Mountain Hemlock Northair Mine North Arm Nunatuk Nurse Stump Overlord Pacific Yew Paper Birch Peak 2 Peak Rainbow Lodge Roundhouse Rubble Creek Scree Spearhead Range Tarn The Table Townsend,Charles Usnea Waterbar Western Hemlock Western Redcedar Whistler Spruce Winram,Mills
During the last ice age, glaciers covered British Columbia, and where Whistler is today, the glaciers were two kilometres thick. Glaciers from the last ice age can often be measured by the grinding marks made on the mountains they covered. In the mountains around Whistler you can see just a few that poked through the glaciers, leaving their peaks jagged. Other, shorter mountains around Whistler can be easily recognized as completely covered in ice. Shown by their rounded, glacier ground peaks. For an erratic to be considered a true erratic it must lay in an area with dissimilar rock types. For example, rock and mountains around the erratic should be of different colour, texture and composition. An erratic should look very out of place and distinct from its surroundings.
Erratics are frequently the result of glaciers carrying or grinding the erratic as it slowly moves down a glacier valley. Rock slides from mountains can deposit house sized boulders onto a glacier which then slides down a valley for centuries, eventually releasing it. These erratics are easy to trace back to their parent rock by matching them to identical rocks up the likely ice flow route. Ice rafting is another way erratics have been moved great distances. Ice rafting results from an ice dam breaking apart and tremendous volumes of water and ice flooding through. These erratics are often detected by the high water marks left by the floods that moved them. Another cause of erratics is via icebergs floating in the ocean and eventually releasing the rock encased in the melting ice.
Ablation Zone Accumulation Zone Adit Lakes Aiguille Alpine Zone Arête ARRTI Armchair Glacier The Barrier Battleship Islands Bears Bench Bergschrund Bivouac Bungee Bridge Cairn/Inukshuk Carter,Neal Chimney Cirque Cloudraker Coast Douglas-fir Coast Mountains Col Columnar Jointing Cordilleran Cornice Corrie Lake Crevasse Dalgleish,Alec Deadfall Emerald Forest Erratic The Fissile Fitzsimmons Creek Fitzsimmons Range Fyles,Tom Garibaldi Ranges Garibaldi Volcanic Belt Gemel Glacier Window Green Lake Hoary Marmot Krummholz Lithophyte Lodgepole Pine Moraine Mt Garibaldi Mt James Turner Mountain Hemlock Northair Mine North Arm Nunatuk Nurse Stump Overlord Pacific Yew Paper Birch Peak 2 Peak Rainbow Lodge Roundhouse Rubble Creek Scree Spearhead Range Tarn The Table Townsend,Charles Usnea Waterbar Western Hemlock Western Redcedar Whistler Spruce Winram,Mills
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