Crowfoot Glacier facts for kids
Crowfoot Glacier is a cool ice formation found in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. It's about 32 kilometers (20 miles) northwest of Lake Louise. You can easily see this glacier from the famous Icefields Parkway, a scenic road that winds through the mountains.
This glacier sits on the side of Crowfoot Mountain. It's named "Crowfoot" because it used to look like a bird's foot with three "toes" or lobes of ice.
What is Crowfoot Glacier?
Crowfoot Glacier is located on the eastern side of the Continental Divide. This means that any water melting from the glacier flows eastward. The melted ice from Crowfoot Glacier helps to supply water to the Bow River, an important river in Alberta.
How Glaciers Change
Like many glaciers around the world, Crowfoot Glacier has been getting smaller over time. It has shrunk quite a bit since the end of a period called the Little Ice Age. This was a time when the Earth was a bit cooler, and glaciers were larger.
Because it has melted so much, the glacier has actually lost one of its "toes" or lobes. This means it no longer looks exactly like the crow's foot that early explorers saw and named it after. It's a good example of how much our planet's climate can affect these giant ice formations.
Size of the Glacier
Scientists have measured Crowfoot Glacier. It covers an area of about 1.5 square kilometers (0.58 square miles). That's like covering more than 200 football fields with ice!
In the past, Crowfoot Glacier was even bigger. It was once connected to a much larger ice area called the Wapta Icefield. In the 1980s, it was considered part of a smaller icefield that was about 5 square kilometers (1.9 square miles) in size.
See also
- Glacier
- Banff National Park
- Icefields Parkway
Images for kids
-
In Spanish: Glaciar Crowfoot para niños
