The Pleistocene /plastsin/ (symbol PS[1]) is the geological epoch which lasted from

about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world's recent period of repeated
glaciations.

Glacier - a slowly moving mass or river of ice formed by the accumulation and
compaction of snow on mountains or near the poles.

Alpine glaciers begin high up in the mountains in bowl-shaped hollows called cirques.
As the glacier grows, the ice slowly flows out of the cirque and into a valley. Several
cirque glaciers can join together to form a single valley glacier.

i. cirque glacier - A cirque glacier is formed in a cirque, a bowl-shaped depression

on the side of or near mountains. Snow and ice accumulation in corries often
occurs as the result of avalanching from higher surrounding slopes.
ii. valley glacier - a glacier usually originating in a cirque at a valley head or in a
plateau ice cap and flowing downward between the walls of a valley.
iii. piedmont glacier - a glacier formed by convergence of the ends of valley glaciers
at the base of mountains.
iv. ice cap - a covering of ice over a large area, especially on the polar region of a
planet.
v. tidewater glacier - a glacier that descends to the sea and usually breaks off into
icebergs.

Continental Glaciers

Ice Sheets- a permanent layer of ice covering an extensive tract of land,

especially a polar region.

Formation of glacial ice:

1.) Snow survives summer.

2.) Following winter old snow is slowly pressured and recrystallized into firn-
a. Firn- immediate stage between snow and glacial ice.
3.) Many years later dense glacial ice forms snow and firn are pressured into a dense
glacial ice.

Antarctica glacial ice formation was about 1000 years.

Glacial mass balance

Accumulation zone : he part of a glacier's surface, usually at higher elevations, on

which there is net accumulation of snow, which subsequently turns into firn and
then glacier ice. Part of the glacier where snow builds up and turns to ice moves
outward from there.

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Net accumulation

Ablation zone: the low-altitude area of a glacier or ice sheet below firn with a net
loss in ice mass due to melting, sublimation, evaporation, ice calving, aeolian
processes like blowing snow, avalanche, and any other ablation.

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Net melting

Net and iceberg calving

Basal Layer- The basal layer is the part of the glacier in which the nature of the ice is
directly affected by proximity to the glacier bed.

A crevasse is a deep crack, or fracture, found in an ice sheet or glacier, as opposed to a

crevice that forms in rock.

Glacial Grooves: sets of parallel furrows which have been ground out of rock
surfaces by boulders lodged in the moving sole of a glacier or ice sheet. The rock
surfaces have often been polished by finer debris. *

Glacial Erratics: a piece of rock that differs from the size and type of rock native to
the area in which it rests. "Erratics" take their name from the Latin word errare,
and are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundreds of kilometres.

Roche Moutonnee: a rock hill shaped by the passage of ice to give a smooth up-ice
side and a rough, plucked and cliff-girt surface on the down-ice side. The upstream
surface is often marked with striations.

Glacial valley: A steep-sided, U-shaped valley formed by the erosional forces of a

moving glacier.

Glacial drift: material, as gravel, sand, or clay, transported and deposited by a

glacier or by glacial meltwater.
Till: a sediment consisting of particles of various sizes and deposited by melting
glaciers or ice sheets.

Terminal Moraine: a moraine deposited at the point of furthest advance of a glacier

or ice sheet.