Glacier Garden

The Glacier Garden is a natural monument in Switzerland, dating back to the last Ice Age. This important natural monument was uncovered by accident on November 2, 1872 by Joseph Wilhelm Amrein-Troller during building work on a wine cellar on this site. It shows traces on the rock that were left by the 800 meters thick Ice that covered Luzern during the last Ice Age.

Glacial scratches
The parallel grooves running from south to north (i.e. from right to left) indicate the direction in which the glacier flowed. These glacial scratches or striation marks were scoured by the rocks trapped inside the ice, which flowed several centimetres a day. The scratches can be seen from right to left in the picture.

 

 

Potholes
These impressive potholes were formed at the bottom of the glacier by the sheer force of the water. As is still the case in alpine glaciers today, the melt water initially flowed on the surface of the ice before seeping into the glacier through fissures. At the bottom of the glacier the water was under tremendous pressure. As the flow of water gathered speed, vortices with speeds of up to 200 km/h began to form. Within a few years, potholes had been eroded out of the rock. Most of the erosion was done by sand and gravel trapped in the cloudy melt-water flow.

 

Melt-water plunges through crevasses which have fractured the glacier’s surface and flows down in torrents.

 

Whirlpools form in some places. This water, which is under very high pressure and travelling at up to 200 km/h, erodes the rocks. Erosion is caused not by a large erratic boulder but mainly by the sand and gravel contained in the turbid melt-water.

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