Plant / Glacial Succession Monitoring in Icy Bay
Beck KA and Cook MB. Plant / Glacial Succession Monitoring in Icy Bay. 1987
Located in the southern portion of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, near Yakutat, AK is the highly glaciated Icy Bay area which has been rapidly deglaciating since the turn of the century. Glaciers in the area are continuing to recede, even as other tidewater glaciers in the Gulf of Alaska, most notably the Hubbard Glacier, are in an advancing cycle. This glacial recession has created the present day configuration of Icy Bay, and has uncovered many square miles of barren land. It has been long recognized that the existence of barren lands created by glacial recession provide a unique opportunity to study vegetation, soil, and wildlife succession from its earliest stages. Located on the western shore of Icy Bay is a triangular peninsula of newly deglaciated land known as "the Arrowhead", because of its distinctive shape. The Arrowhead is surrounded by ocean on its northeastern and southern sides and by the receding face of the Guyot Glacier to the west. Thus, glacial recession at the Arrowhead also provides the opportunity to study succession of an area which is essentially an island, because it is not contiguous with any other land. Animal and plant populations at the Arrowhead must establish themselves from.
- Type
- Project
- Authors
- Beck, Kathryn; Cook, Mary
- Units
- CAKN , SEAN , WRST
- Keywords
- glacial succession, Guyot Glacier, Icy Bay, the arrowhead, Vegetation succession
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Geology and Soils | Geomorphology | Glacial Features and Processes , Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Vegetation Complex