Ahklun Mountains
Ahklun Mountains | |
---|---|
Highest point | |
Elevation | 1204[1] |
Dimensions | |
Length | 80 mi (130 km) |
Width | 30 mi (48 km) |
Geography | |
Country | United States |
State | Alaska |
Range coordinates | 59°23′0″N 160°42′0″W / 59.38333°N 160.70000°W |
Parent range | Kuskokwim Mountains |
The Ahklun Mountains are located in the northeast section of the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge in southwest Alaska. They extend southwest from the Kanektok and Narogurum Rivers to Hagemeister Strait and Kuskokwim Bay[1] and support the only existing glaciers in western Alaska.[2] They are the highest Alaskan mountain range west of the Alaska Range and north of the Alaska Peninsula: some summits in the range have many glaciers. To the west is the Kuskokwim River and to the east are the Bristol Bay lowlands.[3]
The Ahklun Mountains have many lakes, some more than 1,300 feet (400 m) deep.
Environment
The Ahklun Mountains are dominated by
Glaciers
The glaciers were first mapped by the
In 2015, researchers analyzed aerial and satellite images from 1957, 1984, and 2009. They found that 10 out of 109 of the glaciers of the Ahklun Mountains originally mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey in the 1970s had completely disappeared.[6] They also compared the size of the glaciers using aerial photographs and satellite images and found that the glaciers had lost about 50 percent of their total area.[6] At this rate of melting, they predict that all of the glaciers in the Ahklun Mountains will be gone by the end of this century.[6]
Geological evidence show that during the
Lowlands
In the lowlands, areas not reached by the glaciation, the principal geographic features are the
Notes
- ^ a b "Ahklun Mountains". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
- ^ a b Walsh, Patrick; et al. "Inventory of the Ahklun Mountain glaciers, southwest Alaska" (PDF). nalaska.fws.gov. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-05-27. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
- ^ a b c d e "AMP: The Ahklun Mountains Region". www4.nau.edu. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
- ^ "Wilderness.net - Togiak Wilderness". www.wilderness.net. Archived from the original on 2011-06-11. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
- ^ a b c This article incorporates public domain material from Ahklun Mountains Tundra - Meadow (Ecoregions of the United States). United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved 2009-10-25.
- ^ a b c "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-02-14. Retrieved 2015-02-14.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
External links
- "The Ahklun Mountains Project Web Site". www4.nau.edu. Retrieved 2009-10-18.
- Briner, Jason P.; Kaufman, Darrell S. (2000). "Late Pleistocene Glaciation of the Southwestern Ahklun Mountains, Alaska" (PDF). Quaternary Research. 53 (1): 13–22. S2CID 12722549. Retrieved 2009-10-19.
- Briner, Jason; et al. (2002). "Glacier readvance during the late glacial (Younger Dryas?) in the Ahklun Mountains, southwestern Alaska". Geology. 30 (8). GSA: 679. .
- "Chapter 6-Ahklun Mountains Tundra--Meadow Province". United States Forest Service. Archived from the original on 25 October 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-19.