Peters Pool, Franz Josef, West Coast
January 19, 2012 by Gail
Filed under Featured Content
The West Coast town of Franz Josef is the gateway to the Franz Josef Glacier. Tourists can hike to the foot of the glacier through a boulder-strewn riverbed, catch a helicopter ride over the glacier, fly over in a small plane that even lands on top of the glacier in the middle of the fight, or even join a professional guide for a hike to the top via steps carved into the ice face.
Visitors can walk the Douglas Loop, an easy trail leading through sub-tropical vegetation that seems out of place in the glacial ecosystem. The well-defined pathway winds through a palm tree-studded forest where lush Boston ferns cover the spongy ground and tree trunks are covered with exquisite blankets of miniature lichens and mosses.
At the halfway point, the forest opens to reveal Peters Pool, a kettle lake that was formed around 1800 AD by ice melting amongst glacial moraine. This glassy pond perfectly mirrors the distant glacier, creeping down to the valley between Mt Moltke and Mt Roon in the Fritz Mountain Range.
Glacial Moraines
Glacial moraines are formed in an accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris (soil and rock) that can occur in current glaciated and formerly glaciated regions, such as those areas acted upon by a past glacial maximum. This debris may have been plucked off a valley floor as a glacier advanced or it may have fallen off the valley walls as a result of frost wedging or landslide.
Moraines may be composed of debris ranging in size from silt-sized glacial flour to large boulders. The debris is typically sub-angular to rounded in shape. Moraines may be on the glacier’s surface or deposited as piles or sheets of debris where the glacier has melted. Moraines may also occur when glacier- or iceberg-transported rocks fall into a body of water as the ice melts.”
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