Hundreds of glaciers cap the mountains and fill the valleys around the Prince William Sound in Alaska. As they melt, thousands of waterfalls of various sizes traverse the temperate rainforest and drain into the sea.
Rock flour, or glacial flour, consists of fine-grained silt particles generated by mechanical grinding of bedrock by the glaciers. Because the material is very small, it becomes suspended in the water which then appears cloudy. The sediment turns the water color grey, light brown, blue-green, or milky white. Photo © copyright by Dr. Edward Mikol.