CLASSIFICATION, GEOMORPHOLOGY, AND SITE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HART GLACIER COMPLEX, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, CO

Reconnaissance work from the 1920's (Achuff, 2002) suggest that features in Rocky Mountain National Park previously interpreted as terminal moraines, are actually large ice masses covered in debris that consist of multiple components and therefore are better called a glacial complex. Hart Glacier Complex (HGC) consists of two distinctive parts or extents, an upper and lower. These extents are characteristically different from each other in location and orientation, size, shape, geomorphology and behavior. These differences were quantified in order to better classify HGC and a new term has been introduced to better explain the features that were observed in the field. HGC is best classified as a Debris Mantled Glacier, the lower portion is an extension from the upper and is best classified by a new descriptive term, a Deflated and Extended Debris Mantled Glacier.