Olympic Mountain Glory

The Olympic Peninsula in Washington state is home to a diverse range of landscapes, including alpine glaciers, wild coastlines, temperate rainforests, and deep river valleys. The region's rugged interior remains a relatively remote bastion of wilderness, surrounded by blue waters, peaceful islands, and bustling population centers.

The Olympic Mountains' imposing terrain is visible in this oblique view of the region, captured by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. The image is a composite of several sequential, overlapping photos fused together into a panorama.

The rock making up the mountains originated beneath the surface of the ocean, with layers of basalt from undersea eruptions and sand and mud transported seaward by rivers accumulating on the ocean bottom. This material was scraped off the Juan de Fuca plate as it subducted beneath the North American plate, with rock layers crumpling and rising up to 8,000 feet above sea level.

Tectonic forces continue to push the mountains skyward, but the countervailing force of erosion in this rainy, snowy corner of the country effectively cancels out the uplift. Snow at higher elevations feeds glaciers that carve out underlying rock, but these glaciers are retreating and thinning, with their numbers declining.