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A comprehensive inventory of maximum glacial extent in Glacier National Park during the peak of the Little Ice Age

Metadata Updated: September 16, 2025

These polygon features represent the maximum extent of glaciers in Glacier National Park and two glaciers on U.S. Forest Service’s Flathead National Forest land during the peak of the Little Ice Age (mid-nineteenth century). Glacial margins are based on moraine deposits that result from active glaciation, and do not depict perennial snow and ice. The criteria used for determining which moraines constituted a former glacier were a) whether a terminal moraine was present, and b) whether the glacier area was five aces or more. Moraines were digitized based on the best available imagery, including WorldView imagery acquired between 2015 and 2017, border Imagery from the Department of Homeland Security acquired in 2009 and GoogleEarth imagery. High resolution imagery was supplemented with oblique aerial photographs flown in 2009 and 2016, historic photographs from the USGS photograph collection, and field notes from a 1914 USGS survey. Digitization was completed by Chelsea Martin-Mikle (USGS) and local knowledge and interpretation were provided by Dan Fagre and Lisa McKeon (USGS) in February, 2017 – February, 2018. Glacier margins were digitized at 1:2000 scale.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 16, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 16, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5b194ca2e4b092d965237f4a
Data Last Modified 2020-08-31T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 4f30465e-2352-451e-a230-87e66550ebe9
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -114.2486, 48.3084, -113.3643, 49.0226
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 5d921f4e58b0bba9382dc824afd5200b435738b73b1b9ca5d193e2f9a8dd5e58
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -114.2486, 48.3084, -114.2486, 49.0226, -113.3643, 49.0226, -113.3643, 48.3084, -114.2486, 48.3084}

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