Faculty spotlight: Andrew Fountain

Andrew G. Fountain (professor emeritus) and Bryce Glenn (M.S. 2020) are updating the glacier inventory for the western US, exclusive of Alaska, for the US Forest Service. The current glacier outlines on the USGS topographic maps are often decades out of date. Counting features equal to or larger than 0.01 km2 (1 hectare) preliminary numbers indicate about 1331 glaciers and 964 perennial snowfields (2295 total) are currently present. This is about half of what appears on the USGS maps. Much of the difference, we believe, is the inclusion of seasonal snow patches by the original cartographers.