Hector Glacier
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Hector Glacier is located in
Banff National Park Banff National Park is Canada, Canada's first National Parks of Canada, national park, established in 1885 as Rocky Mountains Park. Located in Alberta's Rockies, Alberta's Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary, Banff encompasses of mountainous ter ...
,
Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
. The glacier is on the north slope of Mount Hector and extends northward for . In 1938, a large mass of the glacier broke off and covered the valley below with ice up to 60 m (200 ft) thick. The ice mass destroyed everything in its path and this is only the second known glacier hazard to have been recorded in the Canadian
Rockies The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Canada, to New Mexico in ...
. The glacier, along with Mount Hector and Hector Lake are all named after
James Hector Sir James Hector (16 March 1834 – 6 November 1907) was a Scottish-New Zealand geologist, naturalist, and surgeon who accompanied the Palliser Expedition as a surgeon and geologist. He went on to have a lengthy career as a government employed ...
, a prominent early
naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
to the region.


See also

*
List of glaciers A glacier ( ) or () is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight; it forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation (melting and sublimation) over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly defor ...


References

* * Banff National Park Glaciers of Alberta {{AlbertaRockies-geo-stub