Story Map of Glacier bay National Park

Glacier Bay is located in Alaska. This park consists of huge glaciers and rugged mountains. I would love to go see this one day and take a trip to Alaska. This park has huge rugged mountains and it also has a massive temperate rainforest which is odd since it is in Alaska. It is a 25 million million acre World Heritage Site and one of the world's largest protected areas ( Glacier Bay National park and Preserve.) Glacier Bay also has a lot of wildlife which includes brown and black bears, humpback whales, sea lions, porcupines, and so much more wildlife. It also has a lot of different biomes which include salt marsh, lowland forests, beach meadows, and many more. It has a vast ecosystem with many different types of wildlife and many different biomes which is amazing.

Glacier Bay Park has a lot of Geology and Ecology behind it. The website states, “ Glacier Bay region's extreme topography reveals a landscape driven by immense energies. This results from the area's position astride the active collision zone between the North American and Pacific plates.” ( Glacier Bay National Park & Reserve) Four such terrains have formed in Glacier Bay and have accumulated in a large northwest-southeast pattern from the Glacier Bay region. They have frequent earthquakes which shows that plate motions continue.

While these two plates in Glacier Bay push against each other they form mountains, one of the mountains caused by this was the Fair-weather Range which makes up the western portion of Glacier Bay. This mountain has several peaks over 10,000 feet, and the tallest at 15,300 feet is called Mount Fair-weather ( Sloan, 2023.) When the weather in Glacier Bay has cooled a lot of the time the glaciers will slide off and impact all of the lowlands.

There is also a zone in the park known as the Tarr Inlet Suture Zone. This is where the tectonic plates and boundaries between them haven't always been where we find them today. In the west arm of Glacier Bay, you can see this exposed. The Tarr Inlet suture zone is one of several ancient plate boundaries that can be found in Alaska. Four terranes have accumulated very largely in a northwest-southeast pattern to form the Glacier Bay region. ( Sloan, 2023) Some of these terranes are made up of ancient volcano chains that were once in the middle of an ocean that no longer exists. Overall The geology in Glacier Bay Park is endless with many new things always forming while the plates keep shifting.

Various ecosystem types can be applied to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. Aquatic environments include the intertidal/coastal zone, estuaries, and marine ecosystems, whereas terrestrial ecosystems include glaciers and ice fields, coastal forests, and tundra (both alpine and arctic). ( Geology and Ecology of National Parks) Nearly all of the species found in the National Park and Preserve of Glacier Bay are dependent on the extremely productive coastal and marine waters due to the close proximity of the terrestrial ecosystems to the coastal and marine ecosystems. Glacier Bay Park consists of a large temperate rain forest which provides great living conditions for plants and wildlife.( Pearson )

The Glacier Bay National Park has many different types of wildlife species such as moose, wolves, mountain goats, bears, sea otters, crabs, humpback whales, and many more. Since there are so many different types of terrariums in the park there are many more types of species all over. ( Zabel, 2022)  It is split into different biomes including tundra, glaciers and ice fields, coastal forests, coastal zones, and marine ecosystems. Since there are many different types of biomes there are many different animals that have to adapt to a certain area.

Such as the coastal zone with tides always coming in and out most of the animals live along the shore. There are also many different types of plant communities that host thousands of different types of plants. There is the Salt marsh, Beach meadow, Lowland forest, Highland forest, shrub, bog, sub-alpine meadow, and alpine tundra. Approximately 700 miles of shoreline are included in the 3,283,000 acres that make up Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. ( Zabel, 2022) The National Park is called and well-known for its glaciers, but it is also home to a variety of freshwater, marine, and terrestrial habitats, including forests, fjords, and estuaries. About 200 different kinds of birds, about 40 mammals (including wolves, whales, seals, sea lions, and sea otters), and 300 plant species have been able to settle in the region as a result of the glaciers melting over time and exposing fresh land. ( Glacier Bay National Park and Reserve)

Overall, This Park has many different biomes and features to it that are amazing. Based on all the physical and ecological features I have discussed, you can truly see how this park is amazing. From its variety of different wildlife to its vast biomes there is so much more to this park than just its looks. The significance of this park is that it holds life to so many different plants and animals and even the tall glaciers and mountains. Without this park, many animals would have nowhere to live which is why they keep it as a national park and preserve so no one can cause any harm or damage to its 3.3 million acres of land.

“Glacier Bay National Park & Reserve (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service. Accessed January 18, 2024. Available at: https://www.nps.gov/glba/index.htm 

Birkeland, Christopherson. “Elemental Geosystems .” Pearson+, February 1, 2018. https://plus.pearson.com/home?utm_source=ereader.

“Climate of Alaska.” Earth@Home, 22 June 2022,  https://earthathome.org/hoe/w/climate-ak/ 

Sloan, Gene. “Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve: The Complete Guide.” The Points Guy, July 10, 2023.  https://thepointsguy.com/guide/glacier-bay-national-park-guide/ .

Geology and Ecology of National Parks. “Ecology of Glacier Bay National Park.” Ecology of Glacier Bay National Park | U.S. Geological Survey. Accessed April 21, 2024. https://www.usgs.gov/geology-and-ecology-of-national-parks/ecology-glacier-bay-national-park.

English, VOA Learning. “Glacier Bay: A Land Reborn.” Voice of America, November 29, 2016. https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/glacier-bay-a-land-reborn/3609056.html.