Kettle Lake and Mountain
by Jon Burch Photography
Title
Kettle Lake and Mountain
Artist
Jon Burch Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Capture & Enhancement
Description
A kettle is a shallow, sediment-filled body of water formed by retreating glaciers or draining floodwaters. The kettles are formed as a result of blocks of ice calving from glaciers and becoming submerged in the sediment on the out wash plain. Another source is the sudden drainage of an ice-dammed lake. When the block melts, the hole it leaves behind is a kettle. As the ice melts, ramparts can form around the edge of the kettle hole.
These land forms occurring as the result of blocks of ice calving from the front of a receding glacier and becoming partially buried by glacial out wash. The out wash is generated when streams of melt water flow away from the glacier and deposit sediment to form broad out wash plains called sandurs. When the ice blocks melt, kettle holes are left in the sandur. When numerous kettle holes disrupt the surface, a jumbled array of ridges and mounds form, resembling kame and kettle topography found elsewhere in the United States. Kettle holes can also occur in ridge shaped deposits of loose rock fragments called till.
This Kettle is an active elk watering hole located near the top of Old Fall River Road in northern Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park.
Image copyright 2019 Jon Burch Photography
Uploaded
September 11th, 2019
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