20 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
Hanging glacier
Water bodies; Glaciers
A glacier that originates high on the wall of a glacier valley and descends only part of the way to the surface of the main glacier. Avalanching and icefalls are the mechanisms for ice and snow ...
Calving glacier
Water bodies; Glaciers
A glacier with a terminus that ends in a body of water (river, lake, ocean) into which it calves icebergs.
Cirque glacier
Water bodies; Glaciers
A small glacier that forms within a cirque basin, generally high on the side of a mountain.
Retreat
Water bodies; Glaciers
A decrease in the length of a glacier compared to a previous point in time. As ice in a glacier is always moving forward, its terminus retreats when more ice is lost at the terminus to melting and/or ...
Glacial furrow
Water bodies; Glaciers
A linear depression, inches to miles in length, produced by the removal of rock or sediment by the erosive action of a glacier.
Horn
Water bodies; Glaciers
A pointed, mountain peak, typically pyramidal in shape, bounded by the walls of three or more cirques. Headward erosion has cut prominent faces and ridges into the peak. When a peak has four ...
Fountain
Water bodies; Glaciers
A glacial spring, generally discharging supercooled water with a significant hydrostatic head.
