GLACIER NATIONAL PARK AS A TOOL FOR GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION

Glacier National Park represents a tremendous educational resource for geoscience education. Its stunning beauty is the result of billions of years of earth history overprinted by more recent glaciation. The Park showcases a very complete upper middle Precambrian section of the Belt Supergroup that occurs throughout Western Montana. Geologic interpretation of Belt formations in the Park generally supports a shallow lacustrine depositional environment. Shallow burial depth and low metamorphic grade have allowed excellent preservation of sedimentary structures, stromatolites and bright coloring that makes many of the Belt formations in Glacier Park quite visible. The evolution of early life in the CO2 - rich atmosphere of the Precambrian may hold the key to better understanding climate change being observed in the modern atmosphere as evidenced by the rapid recession of Grinnell Glacier, Sperry Glacier, and other glaciers within the Park's boundaries. The Lewis Overthrust is one of the most striking examples of thrust faulting in North America and is the key to understanding the Park's tectonic underpinning and the larger structural evolution of the Rocky Mountains.

Glacier Park's exquisite glacial features have also captivated generations of visitors to the Park. Recent intense public interest in climate change has drawn international attention to the rapid recession of Glacier Park's glaciers. The USGS maintains a research office at Park Headquarters in West Glacier and has focused recent climate modeling efforts on the rate of glacial recession and the measurement of resultant ecologic change due to global warming.

Traditional applied educational approaches using field observations and discussions are the mainstay of most geoscience field programs. The Glacier Institute offers an applied summer geology field program that highlights the geological resources of Glacier National Park. Students of all ages are led through a series of classroom lectures, and hands-on field trips involving discussions of the geologic history of Glacier Park.