Anderson Glacier was a

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

located in a

cirque A (; from the Latin word ) is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by Glacier#Erosion, glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from , meaning a pot or cauldron) and ; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform a ...

south of Mount Anderson in the

Olympic Mountains The Olympic Mountains are a mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are not especially high – Mount Olympus (Washington), Mount Olympus is the high ...

and

Olympic National Park Olympic National Park is a national park of the United States located in Washington, on the Olympic Peninsula. The park has four regions: the Pacific coastline, alpine areas, the west-side temperate rainforest, and the forests of the drier e ...

. The southward-facing glacier starts on the steep

headwall In physical geography and geology, the headwall of a glacier, glacial cirque (landform), cirque is its highest cliff. The term has been more broadly used to describe similar geomorphic features of non-glacial origin consisting of a concave depress ...

s of the cirque at about to . It flows down to about before terminating. Meltwater from the glacier enters a lake at about before tumbling down a steep cliff. Between 1927 and 2009, Anderson Glacier lost more than 90 percent of its surface area. By 2011, the glacier was gone. The lack of glacial meltwater from the Anderson Glacier has caused the

Quinault River The Quinault River ( or ) is a long river located on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington. It originates deep in the Olympic Mountains in the Olympic National Park. It flows southwest through the "Enchanted Valley" to opposite ...

to reach new recorded lows.

See also

References

Further reading