Tasman Glacier Terminal Moraine

In the 19th Century the level of the glacier ice was well above the height of the moraine. The boulders dropped off the edge of the glacier having been transported up to 29kms from the head of the valley or one of its tributaries. The chaotic piles of rock fragments and larger boulders will have fallen onto the ice from the surrounding mountains and been carried on the surface of the moving ice. Due to recent retreat of the glacier and expansion of the lake, these moraines are no longer accumulating. There are areas of isolated 'dead ice' under parts of the moraine towards the lake. This is ice that is no longer moving and is protected from melting by the thick overlying rock cover.

From the top of the moraine above the blue lakes, there is a great overview of distant high peaks, and the expansive Tasman Lake. Icebergs calve off the terminal ice face that is about 6 kms distant (in 2016). On either side of the lake you can see the lateral moraine walls that have also been increasingly exposed as the glacier surface has been lowering since the peak of the Little Ice Age (LIA) in the mid 19th Century.