Most California glaciers shrinking

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- Seven California glaciers are shrinking rapidly, according to a photographic survey conducted by a university researcher and his associates.

But surveyors also found that glaciers on Mount Shasta in far northern California are growing, said Hassan Basagic, a university graduate student who initiated the survey.

He said glaciers were surveyed and photographed with the results compared to similar data gathered a century ago, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

Overall, there's "been lots of melt," said Nathan Stephenson, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey based at Sequoia National Park

But the growth of the Mount Shasta glaciers was an unexpected development, given that the majority of the world's glaciers are in retreat. Three of the mountain's glaciers have doubled in size since 1950, said Slawek Tulaczyk, a glaciologist at UC Santa Cruz, who began the Mount Shasta Glacial Survey in 2002.