Geological formation, Glaciation
11 WHS

Glacier parks
Gros Morne National Park
High Coast / Kvarken Archipelago
Ilulissat Icefjord
Lena Pillars
Laponian Area
Los Glaciares
Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona
Te Wahipounamu
Waterton Glacier International Peace Park
Yosemite National Park

See http://www.worldheritagesite.org/categories/category10.html

Sorry - i had posted my suggestion on the other topic - i have copied below

Yes = 5 No = 5

Glacier Parks Y
Gros Morne N - not that special
High Coast Kvarken N?
Illulisat Y - represent the Arctic
Lena Pillars N - Not that special
Los Glaciares Y - Southern hemisphere continental glaciation
Swiss Tectonic N - rather "specialised" significance?
Te Wahipounamu Y - Representing NZ zone and flora/fauna
Waterton Glacier N - not that special
Yosemite Y

I would say the same, only some doubt about

(how common is an Overthrust)

I'm sorry, the list should contain 11 glaciation sites. I just refreshed all category pages on advice of Assif, as some sites were missing. Laponian Area has been added

Aren't flora and fauna irrelevant to this geological category?
Gros Morne represents plate tectonics, Kvarken represents glaciation processes, Arena Sardona represents mountain building.
I am far from knowledgeable on geology, but I get the impression Solivagant's selection is centred on current glaciers and that historical geological processes are missing.
I would still support Glacier Park, Illulisat and Los Glaciares for being iconic.

Laponian is also in the "Human Activity" category
I would probably say "N?"


Well there is one in the Waterton Glacier (see -already we are "learning")!! I would still hold it in reserve as a "N?"
If we are to reduce to 400 -500 we have to be fairly tough. We could adopt a "hold" approach and then look back on them after we have been through all the Categories and seen what numbers we have?

Fair enough - Te Wahipounamu is also in the Natural landscape marine and Coastal category so we could give it a N? and see if it comes in with the other category. 2 "halves" might make a "one"! I would have made that judgement now but we could leave it until the relevant category


True - but is that enough to bring them in? I accept that we need to avoid excessive and unnecessarily early "rejection" but some have to go and not everything can be put on hold!!!

In bold the ones we seem to agree on. Italic the maybe('s). We can have Sardona not only because of the Overthrust, but also for representing the Alps (or would Jungfrau and Dolomites cover that enough).

Glacier parks
Gros Morne National Park
High Coast / Kvarken Archipelago
Ilulissat Icefjord
Lena Pillars
Laponian Area
Los Glaciares
Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona
Te Wahipounamu
Waterton Glacier International Peace Park
Yosemite National Park

My selection

Glacier Parks
Illulisat
Los Glaciares
Te Wahipounamu
Waterton Glacier
Yosemite
Laponian Area

I'm a bit confused by this category, since one site in particular is a geologic formation not associated with glaciation (Lena Pillars), while two other sites, while glaciated, are more well-known for their unique geologic contributions (Gros Morne, for the exposed sections of the earth's mantle in the Tablelands, and the Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona, for the aforementioned overthrust). Would Lena Pillars fit in better under the Geological Formation, Karst / Caves or Natural Landscape, Eroded sections? As for the latter two, they seem to fit into a plate tectonics category (Gros Morne for exhibiting continental drift and Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona for mountain building). Are there enough other sites inscribed for reasons directly related to plate tectonics to warrant a plate tectonics category?

For the subject at hand, if we are solely looking at unique examples of glaciation, I would probably go with three options:

1. Glacier Parks for glaciated coastal landscapes with active glaciers
2. Los Glaciares for glaciated continental landscapes with active glaciers
3. Yosemite National Park for glaciated continental landscapes post-glaciers

I would love to see Te Wahipounamu get represented, too, though it seems to fit more along the lines of an antipodal West Norwegian Fjords coastal landscape.

When we created our categories and assigned sites to them there was both a degree of ignorance (larger in some areas than others - Geology wasn't I fear a strong point!) and compromise. Geology/Natural has never been totally satisfactory. Many of the "Natural landscapes" are in fact manifestations of geological processes - deserts are results of " desertification" just as karst landscapes are results of rock dissolution. Yet one is in landscapes and one in geology!! Colvin is quite right to point out that tectonics is not represented as a process. Volcanism could be said to be a sub process of "tectonics" . Just as "glaciation" has forms related both to past and present activities then so does "tectonic activity"
Whether we want to reconsider our categories at this point I don't know but, if we return to the "little green man", we would surely want to show him examples of the main geological processes which have formed the world - and that must include tectonic.
However all mountain ranges (and we have plenty) are examples of past or ongoing tectonic orogeny so do we also need specific examples as well? On the other hand the AB eval for Gros morne does use the word " unique". Where the "uniqueness" is related to something significant (as in this case) that would seem a good reason for inclusion in the 400+

Why the Swiss Alp Jungfrau Aletsch is disappear from the selection list?

My selection:
Glacier parks
Ilulissat Icefjord
Laponian Area
Los Glaciares
Te Wahipounamu
Yosemite National Park

It's a different category: Mountains. Will be discussed later.