A terminal moraine (foreground) left by retreating Franz Josef Glacier around 14.000 years ago.

If the current average temperature were just 4° C lower, we would be living in an ice age. During the last, 18, 000 years ago, Franz Josef Glacier stretched its tongue some 10km beyond the present coast line. In this period the sea level was around 100m lower than today, as an immense amount of water was locked up in the glaciers all around the world. On the West Coast there were (more…)

As with all the rest of the glaciated world, New Zealand is also losing ice mass at a rapid rate, with 61% lost since 1850 (Hoelzle et al. 2007), and 11% in the last 30 years (T. Chinn, pers. comm.). Most of this loss is from the large glaciers calving into pro-glacial lakes, such as the Tasman Glacier. This lake formation →

The ice flow of a glacier is divided into two types, internal deformation and basal sliding. Internal deformation is movement of parts of the glacier relative to itself. Throughout the descent of the glacier, the ice at the sides and bottom side of the glacier are subject to more friction from the valley floor and walls, and therefore forced to →

The Franz Josef Glacier is one of the fastest moving glaciers on Earth. Unlike most of glacier in the world the Franz Josef Glacier travels down very steep slopes of the Southern Alps. In the upper and very steep parts of the glacier, where the ice in the huge neve is squeezed into a narrow valley, the ice can move →

New Zealand owes its stunning beauty to its location on Earth. This applies particularly well to the West Coast of the South Island. Due to the predominant weather patterns in this part of the globe, the South Island faces the weather sweeping in as a persistent westerly airstream from the Tasman Sea. Moisture laden clouds brought in by these westerly →

One of the most striking forms of evidence of glacial erosion is the colour of rivers like the Waiho River in Franz Josef. The melt water of the river gains a characteristic greyish colour, sometimes known as glacier milk. This is the result of the suspension of very fine grains of rock <0.002mm in size. These particles are called glacial flour →

One of the attractions of the glacier is the beautiful blue colour of its ice. In the upper reaches of the glacier the ice can be up to 300m thick. The upper layer is snow. When this reaches about 16 - 20m deep the snow compresses under its own weight and all the air is squeezed from between the snow →

The unique environment of Westland National Park is responsible for the formation of the local glaciers. These powerful remnants of an ice age manage to survive warming temperatures due to the very special weather conditions on the West Coast of the South Island. Up to 16 metres of precipitation falls on the tops of the Southern Alps every year, →