(calm instrumental music) - [Narrator] The true wonder of our planet lies in its great diversity.

Its wealth of landforms shaped by forces beyond our control.

The sudden shifting of tectonic plates beneath the Earth's crust.

The spectacular eruption of volcanoes.

And the slow and steady movement of ice in the cooler regions of the world.

10% of the Earth is covered with glacial ice clinging to the world's highest mountains, forming ice caps and ice sheets on both poles, leaving an impression on the landscape and on all who bear witness to its splendor.

(dramatic instrumental music) (calm instrumental music) Glaciers form in places where the temperature is so low, seasonal snows fail to melt.

They build up and compress into dense layers which, year after year, millennia on millennia, fuse together to create huge masses of solid ice.

Alpine glaciers form on the sides of mountains and, thanks to gravity, move downwards, creating or deepening valleys.

But ice sheets form broad domes or fields of ice that spread from their centers in any direction, flowing and sliding and ultimately covering everything in their paths.

The largest ice sheet on Earth is in Antarctica, the coldest, driest, and quite possibly the most majestic continent on Earth.

(calm instrumental music) The Antarctic ice sheet, which in some places is more than two and a half miles thick, began forming 14 million years ago.

It currently covers 98% of the continent, a whopping five and a half million square mile plot of land that's devoid of trees, shrubs, and grasses.

Even in the summer months, the average temperature here is minus 17 degrees, so the ice sheet has little chance of melting.

It's so thick, it blankets whole mountain ranges, burying all but the highest peaks, which then became glacial islands, or nunataks.

The sheer weight of all that ice has left a great bowl-shaped depression in the continent... pushing the land, in some places, 1500 meters below sea level.

Almost 90% of the Earth's ice mass is here in Antarctica... a giant storage facility for over 65% of the world's fresh water.

If it melted, sea levels around the world would rise by 65 meters, flooding the homes of half the world's population.

The relentless bone-chilling cold in the middle of this vast, icy wilderness makes it inhospitable to most creatures.

But millions of penguins have adapted to the conditions that prevail along the coasts.

Gentoo penguins come ashore in the summer to breed in huge, boisterous colonies, building nests out of the moraine, piles of small stones tidewater glaciers push aside as they bulldoze their way towards the sea.

Gentoos start breeding when they're two to four years old, and will often form lifelong bonds.

Unlike their much larger emperor penguin cousins, gentoos lay two eggs at a time, with both parents taking responsibility for incubating and raising their chicks, a process that takes several months.

Needless to say, with competition from other species, as well as their own kind, nesting sites can get a little overcrowded.

There isn't a great deal of ice-free space on Antarctica's coast line, as most of it is fringed by massive ice shelves, floating extensions of all that land-based ice that form a fortress of imposing ice cliffs.

(ethereal music) From time to time, chunks of ice break off from the face of glaciers and ice sheets, and drift slowly out to sea.

Small pieces are called bergy bits.

Larger ones, growlers.

And anything bigger than a bus is called an iceberg.

The icebergs around the Antarctic Peninsula, the most hospitable part of this vast polar region, are less significant in terms of size, but no less a wonder to behold.

90% of the mass of an iceberg is underwater, which, as you've probably guessed already, is where the saying "it's just the tip of the iceberg," comes from.

They roll as they melt, and are weathered by the elements into an endless variety of beautiful forms.

Some are perfect platforms for seals to rest on, or hunt from, as they double as a playground for their favorite food.

But make no mistake.

Icebergs can also cause havoc with ships trying to navigate their way through the Southern and Arctic Oceans.

Sea ice presents its challenges too, in the Deep South and the Polar North.

It behaves differently to glacial ice because of where and how it forms.

Glacial ice is frozen snow.

But sea ice is frozen seawater.

And every winter, when the southern oceans freeze, it doubles the size of Antarctica.

Emperor penguins are totally dependent on the presence of sea ice for foraging, breeding, and raising their young.

Male emperors are famous for their enormous huddles, closing ranks through the winter to keep themselves, and the next generation, warm, precariously balancing their eggs, and later, their offspring, on their feet, so they don't come in contact with the ice.

They have survived Antarctica's dark winters and ravenous predators for millions of years.

But as global temperatures rise, due in no small part to human activity, their world is rapidly thawing, and the future they face is less certain.

(dramatic instrumental music) (ethereal music) Throughout its long history, the Earth has warmed and cooled, time and again, due to natural causes, rather than human ones.

Variations in the sun's energy, changes in the atmosphere, and subtle shifts in Earth's orbit, have altered the amount and intensity of sunlight falling on the surface of the planet since the dawn of time.

In the last two and a half million years, Earth has been subjected to a series of Ice Ages, lasting many tens of thousands of years.

When Ice Ages occur, temperatures around the world drop significantly and glaciers expand.

During the last cold period, some 18,000 years ago, permafrost, or frozen land, and glaciers, covered much of the Northern Hemisphere.

At one point, 32% of the land surface on Earth would have looked like this.

A spectacular landscape covered in ice as far as the eye could see.

The Kluane area of the Yukon, which stretches to the Canadian-Alaskan border, is a legacy of the last Ice Age, and one of the largest non-polar icefields in the world.

Nestled between 17 of the nation's top 20 mountains, the Kluane is protected as much by its isolation as it is its World Heritage status.

Over 2,000 glaciers radiate from the icefields, including the 40 mile long Lowell Glacier.

It's so big, the only way to fully appreciate its size is from the air, where simply traversing the length of the Lowell takes a full 20 minutes to complete.

In the past 50 years, Canada's Yukon has lost 22% of its glacier cover, due in no small part to human-induced climate change.

And those stats hold true across the border.

There are more than 100,000 glaciers in Alaska and 95% of those are currently getting thinner or retreating, and therefore shrinking.

Several glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park, remnants from the last little Ice Age, are bucking that trend.

(calm piano music) The Margerie Glacier is something of a rarity these days, as it hasn't been stopped in its tracks.

It's still advancing, pushing three and a half to four meters a day into the bay.

Margerie and other glaciers that can be seen from this glorious waterway are tidewater glaciers that flow down from the mountains all the way out to sea.

Seawater is warm and highly erosive, so when tides and wind-driven waves wash up against the base of Margerie's ice front, it melts and undercuts it quite quickly, causing great blocks of ice to peel away from the glacier and crash down into the sea, breaking up into growlers and bergy bits.

It's also possible to witness the phenomena of glacial calving in the Southern Hemisphere, on glaciers in the Southern Patagonian Icefield.

This is the second largest non-polar icefield in the world.

A mere shadow of its former self, for it once covered all of Southern Chile.

This huge mass pushes ice out from its center into dozens of outlet glaciers in the region, including Perito Moreno and Gray Glacier, which is clearly not named for its color.

When glacial ice first freezes, it's filled with air bubbles that, over time, become compressed.

Without the scattering effect of bubbles, light penetrates ice more deeply, giving it a blue tinge that, even under cloudy skies, glistens like a semi-precious gem.

(dramatic instrumental music) (calm piano music) The Pacific Ocean is not a place you'd expect to find too many glaciers.

But the North, and more particularly, the South Island of New Zealand, has thousands.

There are only 18 left in the North Island and all of them occur on Ruapehu, the largest active volcano in the country.

The thickest sits in the crater, and it's layered with ash from various eruptions.

In winter, many of the other glaciers are blanketed in thick powder snow, creating perfect ski runs for diehard alpine enthusiasts.

Many of the glaciers in the Southern Alps, which dominate New Zealand's South Island, are cirque glaciers, created when the weight of compacted layers of snow slowly deepen the bowl-shaped hollows they fill on the upper reaches of mountains.

If they melt, small lakes known as tarns form in the deepest part of the depression.

But if they expand and flow downhill, usually along the course of an existing stream or river, then they become valley glaciers.

There are more than 3,000 glaciers in the South Island, but the Tasman Glacier, lying wholly within the borders of Aoraki Mount Cook National Park, is the nation's longest at just over 23 kilometers.

Glaciers don't have to be big to be striking.

Indeed, one of the most spectacular in the country is the compact Hanging Glacier on Mount Earnslaw.

As the glacier spills from the mountainside, giant crevasses form and the glacier breaks up into an icefall, creating a dangerous labyrinth of towering blocks of ice that, in time, will shift and fall.

Of all the glaciers in the Southern Alps, only two descend below the tree line, the iconic Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers.

Adventurers have been trekking on the lower reaches of 13 kilometer long Fox Glacier for the better part of a century.

But these days, for safety reasons, helicopters must ferry those seeking such an experience up to a higher point on the glacier, where it is still possible to trek without fear of breaking through the thinning ice.

The movement of the Fox Glacier is lubricated by ice melting beneath it, forcing it to flow much faster than most valley glaciers, so the route across it changes on a daily basis.

The Maori name for the Fox Glacier is Te Moeka o Tuawe, the final resting place for their ancestor, Tuawe.

Legend has it that he fell to his death while exploring the area and the eternal tears his lover, Hine Hukatere, shed while mourning his loss formed the nearby Franz Josef Glacier.

(calm instrumental music) In the last 40 years, the Southern Alps have lost a third of their permanent snow and ice.

Most of the glaciers here are currently experiencing a rapid meltdown, causing the landscape to change dramatically.

As the Fox Glacier retreats, the valley it occupies continues to rise, as extra sediment and rocks are added to the moraine piles on either side and at the end of the glacier.

Scientists worry that even some of New Zealand's largest glaciers are on track to disappear entirely, possibly within a generation or two, contributing to a global trend that's already causing sea levels to rise.

(dramatic instrumental music) (calm instrumental music) The Athabasca Glacier in the Canadian Rockies is the largest of six glaciers that flow from the Columbia Icefield, a remnant of the thick ice mass that once crowned most of the mountains in the nation's Wild West.

It's possible to traverse its otherworldly surface in any season by foot or all-terrain vehicle.

It's the most visited glacier in North America, a waypoint on one of the most celebrated drives on the planet, the Icefield Parkway.

(calm orchestral music) This extraordinary 232 kilometer drive from Jasper to Banff boasts a banquet of Alpine awe and glacial wonder.

Despite receiving about seven meters of snowfall each year, the Athabasca is shrinking.

Since 1890, it has retreated a kilometer and a half and is currently losing at least five meters a year from its surface.

Meltwater from the Columbia Icefields feeds into glacial rivers that then flow into one of three oceans, the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific.

(playful instrumental music) The Athabasca Glacier feeds the Athabasca River, which eventually flows into the Arctic Ocean, a distance of 4,000 kilometers from source to sea.

En route, it thunders through a narrow quartz-rich canyon, creating the 23 meter high Athabasca Falls, a small but enormously powerful wonder, forged over many centuries by the glacier's raging meltwater.

(calm instrumental music) The largest lake in Jasper National Park, just off the northern end of the Icefield Parkway, is Lake Maligne.

It lies in a valley that was carved and excavated by glaciers, dammed at its northern end by the rocks and gravel that were pushed out of the way by the advancing glacier.

This spectacular body of water is very narrow and a whopping 97 meters at its deepest point.

During the summer months, it attracts animals like a magnet.

Herds of mule deer, grizzly and black bears, the occasional caribou, and moose.

(birds chirping) (ethereal music) Moraine Lake in Banff National Park is Maligne's equal.

But an even more famous glacial lake sits at the southern end of the Icefield Parkway.

Lake Louise, one of the most inspiring sights in the Rockies.

(majestic instrumental music) Surrounded by an amphitheater of magnificent mountains, crowned by Victoria Glacier, it's captured the imagination of visitors for years.

(majestic instrumental music) It owes its startling turquoise color to the way rock flour, or glacial silt, in the water filters the light from the sun.

And the more silt that builds up in the smaller lakes above Lake Louise, the bluer they appear.

Even on an overcast day with a light flurry of falling snow, their beauty is profoundly moving.

(dramatic instrumental music) (calm flute music) Another very different lake that's fed by glaciers forms a natural border between Bolivia and Peru.

Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America.

Lying at the dizzying altitude of 12,500 feet, Lake Titicaca formed about 60 million years ago when massive earthquakes shook the Andes and split the range in two, forming a basin that eventually filled with water from melting glaciers.

The lake was sacred to the Incas, who rose to conquer and control the largest pre-Colombian empire in the Americas.

They believed this was where their civilization began and where their first king, Manco Capac, was born, on the Island of the Sun.

27 rivers flow into Lake Titicaca, with most of the water volume coming from rainwater and melting glacial ice.

(relaxing guitar music) With only one major river draining the lake, Titicaca is susceptible to floods.

But in most years, much of the water entering the lake is lost to evaporation, keeping things on an even keel.

The lake has long been the home of the indigenous Uros people.

They live around the shores of the lake and on floating islands within it, made out of the totora reeds which grow profusely along the lake's edges.

Actually, it's not just the islands they create using great bundles of these reeds, it's their homes and furnishings, and even the canoes they use to get around their waterlogged world.

Most families make a living from selling their handicrafts or fishing, for the depths of this unique glacial lake are well stocked with trout, introduced to boost the local economy in the 1930s and '40s.

While motor boats, radios, and mobile phones are becoming more commonplace, the culture here remains remarkably intact.

Indeed, the Uros appear to have their modern world concessions and traditional lifestyle as well balanced as their totora reed canoes.

(dramatic instrumental music) (tense orchestral music) While most Alpine glaciers spill or hang from the sides of high altitude mountains, others have managed to form in the most unlikely of places, inside the craters of dormant and active volcanoes.

(tense orchestral music) The most surprising of them all sits inside the crater of a volcano in Tanzania.

The legendary Kilimanjaro, the tallest peak in Africa and the highest freestanding mountain in the world.

In the 19th century, stories of a huge mountain capped in silver piqued the interest of many European explorers.

But in 1848, when German missionary Johann Rebmann confirmed the existence of Kilimanjaro and its great glacial crown, the Geographic Society of London dismissed his story completely, arguing that it was simply impossible for snow and ice to exist so close to the Equator.

They thought that Rebmann had totally lost his mind, inflicted with a fever that had caused hallucinations, thanks to a bout of malaria.

Even today, despite rapid decline, the snow cap on Kili still glistens and several glaciers remain inside the old volcano's heart.

(contemplative instrumental music) Another place that harbors glaciers inside and on its volcanoes is the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia.

Mutnovsky in Southern Kamchatka is one of the peninsula's liveliest, formed from four overlapping stratovolcanoes.

The four craters on Mutnovsky's summit have all collapsed in on each other, but they are linked by a glacial system.

So, while the slopes of the volcano are pock-marked by mud pools and holes, or fumaroles, venting hot gases and steam, its giant maw is dominated by ice.

(upbeat piano music) Glaciers hang from terraced walls inside the central area of the most active of Mutnovsky's craters and a steam plume rises constantly from within.

If the wind is blowing in the right direction, these hot vapors cause the glacial ice to melt, forming small lakes beneath.

(calm instrumental music) The constant action of fumaroles over many thousands of years have given the volcano a rich palette of colors.

And as hostile as this environment clearly is, it's still possible for flowers to grow.

(calm instrumental music) The ice cores glaciologists drill in this part of the world hold a record of the region's volcanic activity, going back hundreds of years.

The ice layers between are even more interesting, particularly to climatologists, who are able to look at the relative thickness of those layers to determine historic fluctuations in the amount of snow that's fallen, providing a valuable point of reference for them to determine just how quickly the climate is changing.

(upbeat instrumental music) Rapidly melting glaciers and sea ice are, on the one hand, alarming.

But they, ironically, produce landscapes that are incredibly beautiful... creating great art across the northern canvas of the globe, from Kamchatka in Russia to Iceland.

(dramatic orchestral conclusion) (calm instrumental music) One particularly inspiring place in this land of ice and fire, chock-a-block with the debris from melting glaciers, is Jokulsarlon Glacial Lagoon.

(dramatic orchestral music) It forms part of the Vatnajokull National Park, which takes its name from the ice cap that feeds the outlet glacier directly behind it.

With an area of some 8,100 square kilometers and an average depth of 400 meters, Vatnajokull is the largest ice cap by volume in Europe, covering 8% of the country.

As the ice cap and this particular outlet glacier decrease in size, the lagoon that holds its meltwater grows, increasing in volume, and arguably, scenic beauty.

(calm piano music) Many of the icebergs that have broken free from the glacier have scalloped indentations on their surfaces.

They look as if someone has taken a giant ice cream scoop to each magnificent floating form.

Scientists are still studying this phenomenon to see why it occurs, but the current theory puts it down to differences in the atomic mass of individual molecules of water, melting at slightly different temperatures.

Even without the added interference of global warming, Jokulsarlon's icebergs have always melted rapidly, changing shape on a daily basis.

This is because the lagoon is connected to the sea, and seawater accelerates the melting of icebergs.

Jokulsarlon's ice sculptures eventually drift out into the Atlantic, where they break up into smaller growlers and bergy bits that anchor on nearby Diamond Beach.

(ethereal music) With several subglacial volcanoes hiding beneath the great mass of Vatnajokull, ice caves are another magical phenomenon that occur here.

Geothermal activity beneath the giant glacier, coupled with seasonal meltwater, carves these spectacular tunnels that are only accessible in winter, revealing yet another wondrous dimension to Iceland's extraordinary glaciers.

(dramatic instrumental music) (ethereal music) Even though they stand out like prominent features in the landscape, glaciers are not technically landforms.

Rather, it's the action of glaciers that create landforms via a process known as glaciation.

Glacial ice is erosive.

And as glaciers move, they gradually wear away the Earth's surface, scouring the landscape and carving landforms that are so distinctive, they have their own universally recognized names, such as cirques, aretes, and glacial horns.

(calm orchestral music) At 4,480 meters, the Matterhorn in Switzerland is a classic example of the powerful influence of glaciers on the landscape.

Eroded by cirques, its steep sides meet in aretes, which are sharp edged ridges of rock that then lead to its distinctive horn shaped peak.

(calm orchestral music) Present day glaciers move slowly in confined areas of the planet in Antarctica and Alpine regions such as the Himalayas, the Rockies, and the Alps.

But the handiwork of glaciers past is far more widespread.

On every continent on Earth, there are features in the landscape that owe their existence to Ice Age glaciers.

Even Australia, the desert continent.

Moving towards the Equator at the same rate our fingernails grow, it's hard to imagine that 250 million years ago, Australia was very near the South Pole and heavily glaciated by large ice caps.

15,000 to 30,000 years ago, there were glaciers in the Kosiusko region of Mainland Australia.

But the nation's true stronghold of glaciated landscapes is the island state of Tasmania.

(calm instrumental music) One of the most impressive landforms in Tasmania, created by intense glaciation, lies within the Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair National Park, the centerpiece of the World Heritage listed Tasmanian Wilderness.

Sitting at the northern end of the park, Cradle Mountain rises to an altitude of 1,545 meters, a jagged arc of dolerite columns that dip deeply in the center.

(dramatic instrumental music) During the last Ice Age some 15,000 years ago, huge glaciers plunged down the mountainside, hollowing out cirques and pushing their rock debris into piles of moraine.

(dramatic music conclusion) (calm instrumental music) When the ice melted, those moraines acted like dam walls, which held the glacier water back, eventually forming lakes, such as Dove Lake, at the foot of the mountain.

Glacial lakes that are still in the throes of their formation have a milky turquoise hue.

But the water filling Dove Lake today comes from melted snow and rain, and reflects the color of the sky, so it's gray on an overcast day and blue when the sun is shining.

(upbeat instrumental music) As the altitude between the lake and the summit of Cradle Mountain increases, the vegetation changes dramatically.

Dense, temperate rainforest gives way to swampy moors covered by beautiful buttongrass.

And at higher elevations, the extraordinary Tasmanian cushion plant thrives.

Cushion plants are hardy, compact mats of tightly packed Alpine flowers that have adapted to the altitude and weather by generating their own microclimate, which allows them to photosynthesize and grow despite the harsh conditions.

(calm piano music) The other stand out feature across the entire post-glacial wilderness of Tasmania is the wildlife.

Wombats foraging on the plains, wallabies playing hide and seek in the shrubbery, and tiger snakes hiding in the swampy undergrowth.

Despite their name, these highly venomous reptiles don't necessarily have stripes.

And those living in the wilds of Tasmania are often jet black, an adaptation that allows them to absorb heat at a faster rate.

A handy skill to have when you live in an often frosty Alpine environment.

(dramatic instrumental conclusion) (dramatic instrumental music) (ethereal music) The Ice Age beauty of the Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair region is matched on the other side of the world by its World Heritage listed sister park, Jiuzhaigou... (calm Oriental music) in the Sichuan Province of China, 450 kilometers to the north of Chengdu.

This is a natural masterpiece that owes much of its underlying shape to Ice Age glaciers... advancing and retreating over millions of years down the Minshan Mountains that frame the region.

When the glaciers disappeared, the Y-shaped valley they left behind filled with groundwater, loaded with calcium carbonate.

Over time, the accumulation of this chalky white mineral formed tufa, a porous type of limestone that built up in uneven piles and layers, which ultimately led to the creation of this series of magnificent stepped lakes.

(calm Oriental music) They are spread over two and a half thousand meters of elevation, so, adding to their enchantment, the illusion of experiencing several seasons in one day.

Tibetan people have lived here for around 1,300 years.

And according to their folklore, Jiuzhaigou was created when a local goddess was given a mirror by her suitor, the mountain god.

The devil appeared.

She dropped the precious gift and it shattered into 114 pieces, causing the creation of these truly extraordinary lakes.

(dramatic instrumental music) (playful instrumental music) Most of the world's lakes were formed by Ice Age glaciers that scoured hollows in the Earth's surface or dumped rock debris in valleys, creating natural dams.

The picturesque valleys in the English Lake District in Northwest England were all modeled by Ice Age glaciers, as were all the lochs in neighboring Scotland.

(bagpipe music) Two of the most famous are Loch Lomond, the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles, and Loch Ness, best known for its mythical monster.

(upbeat instrumental music) Loch Ness is thought to be around 10,000 years old, having formed at the end of the last great Ice Age.

First written mention of Nessie, the lake's elusive dragon-like resident, appeared in the seventh century.

Experts in geomythology argue that these alleged sightings of the monster were most likely an attempt to explain the sudden movement of the water's surface during earthquakes.

(calm instrumental music) Another famous Ice Age lake with an equally provocative mythology and a good measure of mystery is Wakatipu in the South Island of New Zealand.

Legend has it that the 84 kilometer long lake fills a depression left by the body of Matau, a gigantic ogre who, having kidnapped the daughter of an ancestral chief, was set alight while he was sleeping, ultimately paying for his crime with his life.

The only part of the giant's body that wasn't destroyed by the fire was his heart, which still beats to this day, causing the water level in Wakatipu to rise and fall around 20 centimeters every 27 minutes.

Scientists call this phenomenon a standing wave and claim it's caused by wind and changes in the atmospheric pressure, forcing the water to sway back and forth.

Either way, both explanations spark the imagination and enhance the wonder of Lake Wakatipu.

(dramatic instrumental music) (calm orchestral music) Apart from Wakatipu and other equally magnificent Ice Age lakes, the South Island of New Zealand also harbors another great glacial feature... a maze of spectacular fjords, glacial valleys that have long been filled by the sea.

During the last Ice Age, there was so much water locked up as continental ice, the sea level fell by a hundred meters.

Glaciers flowed from the frozen mountaintops, eroding deep U-shaped valleys as they pushed their way through to the coast.

When the ice melted, the seas filled up again, flooding the coastal valleys, creating a wonderland of deep water fjords.

(light instrumental music) Milford Sound is by far the best known of the 15 fjords that fringe the southwest corner of the South Island.

Its mood changes with the season and the weather, but it never fails to impress.

Writer Rudyard Kipling even went so far as to declare it, "The eighth wonder of the world."

Iconic Mitre Peak rises nearly 1700 meters above the surface waters of Milford Sound... its smoothed rock walls creating some of the highest sea cliffs in the world.

A marine reserve protects the fish that live within the depths of the fjord, along with visiting dolphins and seals.

More than 60 bottle-nosed dolphins live in the area and can often be seen riding the bow waves of cruise ships.

And the rocks at Seal Point provide a handy haul-out for a small colony of sun loving New Zealand fur seals.

Once hunted to the brink of extinction, these marine mammals are now protected, so their population is steadily growing.

(mysterious instrumental music) More difficult to encounter are fjordland's birds, for most live within the dense native forests that stretch beyond the fjord, Including the kea, a large, inquisitive, Alpine parrot that's native to the mountainous South Island... and the critically endangered kakapo.

(calm orchestral music) Nourished by a high annual rainfall, the plant life in this region is extraordinary, boasting over 700 species, including many that originated on the ancient supercontinent, Gondwana.

The terrain here is rugged, to say the least, an arduous place to explore, but trekking or flying beyond the Sound reveals yet more Ice Age wonder on the grandest of scales.

With water, wind, and rain continuing to reshape its contours, the evolution of this Ice Age wonder is far from over.

(calm instrumental music concludes) (light orchestral music) We are living in confronting times, where the future of many of the world's glaciers is unknown.

And yet the changes we will witness in our lifetimes are mere blips on Earth's ancient radar, for the planet has seen it all before.

Ice Ages have come and gone, sea levels have risen and fallen, animals have evolved and died out.

But the Earth, in all its remarkable glory, endures, reshaping and reforming anew.

(calm music ends) (dramatic instrumental music)