Glacial Landscapes

The Kubros
 • Glaciers are massive bodies of slowly moving ice that
form on land and are made up of fallen snow that gets
compressed into ice over centuries. They move slowly
What are glaciers? down from the pull of gravity. About 2 percent of all the
water on Earth is frozen in glaciers.
Where do glaciers
form?
In very low temperatures and in very high
altitudes. They then usually slowly slide down
to lower altitudes. Most of the
world’s glaciers exist in the polar regions, in
areas like Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, and
Antarctica. Glaciers also can be found closer to
the Equator in some mountain regions. The
Andes Mountain range in South America
contains some of the world’s largest
tropical glaciers.
The last Ice age
The last glacial period began about 100,000 years
ago and lasted until 25,000 years ago. Today we
are in a warm interglacial period.

When the glacier melts, it leaves piles of these

rocks behind. The rock piles are called moraines
and can provide evidence that glaciers once
covered large parts of the world.
 Two main types of glaciers

Continental glacier Alpine glacier

Continental glaciers
• Slow moving thick ice sheets

• Only in Antarctica and Greenland

• Form and grow when climate conditions cool over

extended periods of time

• 68% of fresh water

• Antarctic ice sheet is in places 4 km of pure ice thick

• On flat lands but gravity forces movement

• Thicker center pushes out to the thinner edges

• If they flow towards the ocean, they can create ice shelves
Alpine glaciers
• Originate in the mountains

• Mostly in cold and temperate regions but can happen in

tropical regions as well (for ex. The Andes)

• Is created when the rate of melting is slower than the rate of

snowfall

• Zone of accumulation – accumulation is faster then melting

• Zone of ablation – melting is faster than accumulation

• Equilibrium line – line between the 2 zones

• Firn – strongly compressed snow

Glacier
• Large body of ice

• Moves under its own weight

• 99% of glacial ice is in continental ice sheets

• Based on solid ground

• No water underneath, only ice and rock
• Often carries large rock formations

• Forms in places where accumulation of snow exceeds its

ablation (continental glacier)
• This process often takes decades if not centuries

• On every continent except Australia

Iceberg
• Free floating pieces of ice
• Size varies from small chunks to pieces
you can land a helicopter on
• Less than 2m – growler
• Less then 5m – bergy bits
• More then 5m – icebergs
• A group of ice icebergs is called an
“armada”
• Icebergs grounded on the beach are
called shoals
• Icebergs float in a very specific way
• https://joshdata.me/iceberger.html
Ice shelve
• Floating extension of land ice

• Different from sea ice

• Sea ice is free floating while an ice shelve is still attached to its
land counterpart

• Surrounds the Antarctic

• Around the size of Greenland

• Caused by ice flow

• Ice shelves can be up to 2km thick and up to a 100m above the

surface cliffside
Glacial erosion
• Snow collects in a sheltered hollow on the side of a mountain.

• More snow collects in the hollow over time. This becomes compacted
and the air is squeezed out leaving ice.

• The back wall of the corrie gets steeper due to freeze-thaw weathering
and plucking. The base of the corrie becomes deeper due to abrasion.

• As the glacier gets heavier it moves downhill, it moves out of the

hollow in a circular motion called rotational slip.

• Due to less erosion at the front of the glacier a corrie lip is formed.

• After the glacier has melted a lake forms in the hollow.

• This is called a corrie lake or tarn.

Glacial
transportation
• Glaciers move very slowly. As they move, they
transport material from one place to another:

• As freeze-thaw weathering occurs along the edge of

the glacier pieces of rock, which break off larger
rocks, fall onto the glacier and are transported.

• Rocks plucked from the bottom and sides of the

glacier are moved downhill with the ice.

• Bulldozing is when rocks and debris, found in front

of the glacier, are pushed downhill by the sheer force
of the moving ice.

• Rotational slip is the circular movement of the ice in

the corrie.
Glacial deposition
• Any material carried or moved by a glacier is called moraine.
• There are three different types of moraine:
• Lateral moraine - material deposited along both sides of the
glacier. This moraine is usually made up of weathered
material that has fallen from the valley sides above the
glacier.
• Medial moraine - material deposited in the middle of the
glacier. This is caused by the lateral moraines of two glaciers
when they meet.
• Terminal moraine - material deposited at the end of the
glacier.
Glacial landforms in
Slovakia

Údolia v tvare U,
Pôsobenie na
napríklad
Plesá hory, napríklad
bielovodská
Gerlach
dolina
Sources
◦ What are glaciers? - Discovering Antarctica
◦ Cirque and Alpine Glaciers (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
◦ 17.1 Types of Glaciers – Physical Geology, First University of Saskatchewan Edition (u
sask.ca)
◦ https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/glacier
◦ https://tenor.com/search/glacier-gifs
◦ Ice shelves, icebergs and sea ice in Antarctica (antarcticglaciers.org)
◦ https://coolschool.ozpersona.sk/montessori-pedagogika/obdobie-6-12-rokov/kozmicka-
vychova/i-posobenie-vody/i-15/

◦ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/
◦ https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zxn87hv/revision/3#:~:text=Glaciers%20move%
20very%20slowly.,the%20glacier%20and%20are%20transported
.
Thanks for
your
attention