4 Terms
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Glaciers
A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation (melting and sublimation) over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform and flow due to stresses induced by their weight, creating crevasses, seracs, and other distinguishing features. They also abrade rock and debris from their substrate to create landforms such as cirques and moraines. Glaciers form only on land and are distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water.
Industry: Water bodies
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Glaciers
Polar glacier
Water bodies; Glaciers
A glacier with a thermal or temperature regime in which ice temperatures always remain below the freezing point.
Chatter marks
Water bodies; Glaciers
A series of small, closely spaced, crescentic grooves or scars formed in bedrock by rocks frozen in basal ice as they move along and chip the glacier's bed. The horns of the crescent generally point ...
Reconstituted glacier
Water bodies; Glaciers
A glacier formed below the terminus of a hanging glacier by the accumulation, and reconstitution by pressure melting (regelation), of ice blocks that have fallen and/or avalanched from the terminus ...
Fjord
Water bodies; Glaciers
A glacially eroded or modified U-shaped valley that extends below sea level and connects to the ocean. Filled with seawater, depths may reach more than 1,000 feet below sea level. The largest Alaskan ...
Advance
Water bodies; Glaciers
An increase in the length of a glacier compared to a previous point in time. As ice in a glacier is always moving forward, a glacier's terminus advances when less ice is lost due to melting and/or ...
Trimline
Water bodies; Glaciers
A clear boundary line on the wall of a glacier valley that delineates the maximum recent thickness of a glacier. It may be a change in the colour of the bedrock, indicating the separation of ...
Continental glacier
Water bodies; Glaciers
A thick, subcontinental to continental-scale accumulation of glacier ice and perennial snow that spreads from a centre of accumulation, typically in all directions.
