Lake Clark National Park and Preserve Natural Features

Earth's deep time and raw newness live side by side at Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. Coastal cliffs on Cook Inlet hold fossil remnants of 150 million years of sea life. But 10,000 feet above them two active, snow-clad volcanoes-Iliamna and Redoubt-can spew out recycled Earth crust as new land surface. Mountain glaciers daily pluck and etch the spectacular scenery here where mountains of the Alaska and Aleutian ranges join. An awesome, jagged array, the park's Chigmit Mountains record centuries and millenia of crustal uplift, intrusion, earthquakes, volcanism, and glacial gouging, scouring, and mounding. Continuously inhabited since early prehistoric times, this region nevertheless remains wild and sparsely populated by humans. Its several ecosystems suggest many diverse regions across Alaska.