Today, about one-tenth of the Earth's land is covered by glacial ice. The Laurentide Ice Sheet was almost 3 kilometers (2 miles) thick and covered North America from the Canadian Arctic all the way to the modern U.S. state of Missouri.

What happened to the Laurentide Ice Sheet?

- A new study has found that the massive Laurentide ice sheet that covered Canada during the last ice age initially began shrinking through calving of icebergs, and then abruptly shifted into a new regime where melting on the continent took precedence, ultimately leading to the sheet's demise.

Where is the last remnant of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet?

Study finds current Arctic warming is almost unheard of in past 2.5 million years. The scenery at the coast just northeast of the Barnes Ice Cap, the last remnant of the Laurentide Ice Sheet.