GlaciersGlaciers form in places where more snow falls than melts or sublimates. The weight of the snow packs the snow tightly and this create a glacier ice. Glaciers are constantly moving because of the gravity. Continental glacier is a thick sheet of ice that covers a huge area, such as a continent or a huge island. Valley glacier is a glacier that occurs in a high mountain valley. Glaciers erode rock through abrasion and plucking. Plucking a process where the glacial ice widens cracks in bedrock beneath the glacier.
Glaciers cause many distinctive features in the land scape including cirques, horns, U-shaped valleys, and glacial lakes. |
Cirques• Large bowl-shaped valleys out of a mountainside
|
Horns• Several ridges connect to form a pyramid-shaped peak
|
U-shaped valleys• Form when glaciers widen a V-shaped valley
|
Glacial Lakes• Lakes created by the glacial
|
When a glacier melts, it deposits its load of sediment, creating a variety of landforms
Till |
Till is a glacier sediment.
|
Moraines |
Moraine is a mound of sediment at the downhill end of the glacier along its sides.
|