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The Palisade Glacier is a
glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...
located on the northeast side of the Palisades within the
John Muir Wilderness The John Muir Wilderness is a wilderness area that extends along the crest of the Sierra Nevada of California for , in the Inyo and Sierra National Forests. Established in 1964 by the Wilderness Act and named for naturalist John Muir, it encom ...
in the central
Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...
of California. The glacier descends from the flanks of four fourteeners, or mountain peaks over in elevation, including North Palisade (), the highest peak of the Palisades group and the third highest peak in the Sierra Nevada overall. The
cirque A (; from the Latin word ') is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from Scottish Gaelic , meaning a pot or cauldron) and (; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landfo ...
containing the Palisade Glacier has a history of thousands of years of glaciation. The modern glacier attained its last maximum extent during the
Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...
, between 250 and 170 years ago (a period also known as the Matthes glaciation in the Sierra Nevada). It currently has an area of and the glacier is long and wide. It is located between and moves at a rate of per year, although it is also retreating. Palisade Glacier is one of the few glaciers in California that terminates in a
proglacial lake In geology, a proglacial lake is a lake formed either by the damming action of a moraine during the retreat of a melting glacier, a glacial ice dam, or by meltwater trapped against an ice sheet due to isostatic depression of the crust around th ...
dammed by its former
moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice she ...
, turquoise-colored from the glacial powder suspended in the water. The Big Pine Lakes below the glacier are also the same color. Another feature of the glacier is a moulin, which was formed in a drought during 1977, and a
bergschrund A bergschrund (from the German for ''mountain cleft'') or rimaye (from French; ) is a crevasse that forms where moving glacier ice separates from the stagnant ice or firn above. It is often a serious obstacle for mountaineers, who sometimes ...
.


See also in the United States

*
List of glaciers in the United States This is a list of glaciers existing in the United States, currently or in recent centuries. These glaciers are located in nine states, all in the Rocky Mountains or farther west. The southernmost named glacier among them is the Lilliput Glacie ...


References

Glaciers of California Glaciers of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Glaciers of Inyo County, California Inyo National Forest {{US-glacier-stub