Unit-13

How does ice change the world?

What are glaciers?
• Made of snow that, over hundreds of years, has been pushed down
or compressed into large, thickened ice masses.
• Contain rock and sediment
• Glaciologists are Earth scientists who investigate glaciers all over the
world. They measure glaciers to see how they change and how they
alter landscapes through time.
Where are glaciers found?
• Formed in locations where:
• Average annual temperatures are near freezing point
• Large amounts of snow fall during winter months
• Temperatures throughout the year are not high enough to melt the
previous winter’s build up of snow.
• Formed the largest reservoir of fresh water on the planet.
• Stored 75% of the world’s fresh water
• Cover around 10% of the Earth’s total land area and are found 47
countries
What are the different types of glacier?

• Alpine glaciers, which form on mountainsides and move down slopes

through valleys
• Continental ice sheets, which spread out and cover larger areas
What is an Ice Age?
• The climate of the UK has changed many times between very cold
glacial and warmer interglacial conditions.
• Ice ages are when temperatures are low enough for ice to form
glaciers and ice sheets.
• During the last ice age, the world was, on average, around 5 ° C colder
than today.
• Currently about 10% of the Earth’s land surface is covered in glacial
ice.
• During the last ice age, ice covered up to 30% of land
 How do glaciers form and move?
• Glacial ice forms in upland or polar areas above the snowline where snow and ice cover the
ground throughout the whole year.
• It takes many years for snow to become glacial ice.
• Snow accumulates (gains ice), it is compressed by its own weight.
• Gradually, dense, hard ice forms and starts to flow down-slope under its own weight.
• Where more ice is gained that lost over a year, it is called zone of accumulation.
• If temperatures remain low, with heavy snowfalls, glaciers advance down-slope.
• If accumulation (the amount of ice gained) is greater than ablation (melting), then the
amount of ice stored in a glacier increases and the glacier advances.
• If the ablation is greater than the accumulation then the glacier reduces in size and
retreats.
• This occurs in the zone of ablation.
• The ice can move at different speeds.
• This creates wrinkles in the surface of the ice, forming great cracks called crevasses.
• The end of the glacier is called the snout.
 Glacial processes
• Weathering, erosion, transportation and deposition occur in different ways with
glaciers than with rivers and the sea.
• Freeze-thaw weathering takes place more often in cold temperatures, as shown in
Diagram A. it can occur under and at the sides of the valley glacier.
• Rock fragments of the mountainside continually break off and fall into the glacier
ice.
How do glaciers transport and deposit material?
• As the glacier moves down-slope it is
transporting vast amounts of rock that
have mixed with the ice.
• This debris is called moraine.
• frost-shattered rock debris and sides,
transported and deposited by glaciers
• Moraine varies in size from huge angular
boulders to fine clay.
• Down-slope temperatures eventually
become warmer and the ice will begin to
melt, at the glacial snout.
• As the ice melts, the material it was
transporting is deposited. The water from
the melting ice runs down-slope, feeding a
river or lake.
• This is called meltwater.
 What landforms are created by glacial
erosion?
• During glacial periods in the
last ice age, ice caps covered
mountain areas.
• River valleys were slowly
filled by moving ice which
straightened and deepened
them.
Corries
• A corrie is where a glacier begins to develop as a sheltered hollow on the sides of a mountain.
• As snow builds up and turns to ice, it starts to flow.
• As ice builds up in the hollow, the increased weight of ice and movement down-slope leads to the
ice gouging and deepening the hollow.
• make (a groove, hole, or indentation) with or as with a sharp tool or blade
• The ice rotates as it moves and flows down-slope.
• After an ice age, a lake may form in the hollow called tarn.
• A corrie has three distinctive features: a steep back wall, an over-deepened hollow and a lip.
 Arete and pyramidal peaks
• Where two corries develop side by
side, the glaciers erode the rock
between them leaving a knife-like
edge called an arete.
• When three or four corries develop
around the mountain top, a
pyramidal peak is formed.
 Diagram-A (The formation of valleys)

High in the mountains, the river is

narrow and fast-flowing. Mountains are
steep, so the river flows downhill very
quickly. Its water carries pebbles and
boulders that erode (wear away) the
sides and bottom of the river bed,
deepening the river and cutting down
the mountain in a V-shape, called a
valley.
During
The formation of U-shaped valley (13.5)
• One of the most dramatic changes to a landscape caused
by glacial erosion is the formation of U-shaped valleys.
• A series of small corrie glaciers move down-slope from
the hollow on the mountainside where they formed.
• They slowly join together to form one large glacier-like
river tributaries flowing into a main river. This large
glacier can erode more powerfully.
• It therefore creates a deeper valley with sheer,(steep)
straight sides and a flat bottom. This valley looks like the
letter “U”, hence the name- U-shaped valley.
• Look back how this happens. After the ice, the river that
flows in the U-shaped valley seems far too small for the
huge valley it did not erode.
• It is called a misfit river.
• river that is either too large or too small to have eroded
the valley in which it flows
Hanging valleys and truncated spurs
• When a U-shaped valley is created, the
glacier cuts through the interlocking
spurs that previously formed the river
valley.
• This leaves behind steep cliffs along the
sides of the U-shaped valley- these are
called truncated spurs.
• Once the ice melts and the river flows
once more, the tributary streams and
their small valleys are left hanging high
above the U-shaped valley floor.
• This landform is called a hanging valley.
• Often the tributary streams fall from this
hanging valley as waterfalls.
Ribbon lakes
• Sometimes the floor of a U-shaped
valley is filled with long thin lakes
called ribbon lakes.
• These lakes can form for different
reasons.
• Where a glacier transports big rock
debris over softer rock it sometimes
erodes a deeper narrow through in
the flat valley floor.
• As the ice melts, this fills with
meltwater, creating a lake.
Fjords
• Fjords are flooded, glaciated valleys.
They are found in places where current
or past glaciation occurred below the sea
level.
• Fjords are formed when a glacier
retreats, after eroding its typical U-
shaped valley, and the sea fills the
resulting valley floor.
• This forms a narrow, steep-sided inlet
(sometimes deeper than 1,300 m)
connected to the sea.
• The term “fjord” is of Norwegian origin.
Norway has one of the finest fjord
coastlines in the world.
• Fjords have sheer cliff sides, often with
hanging valleys and truncated spurs.
How does glacial deposition create landforms?
• Glaciers and ice sheets carry
, ranging(extend)
,
.
• At the snout of the glacier, the ice ,
so this

• It is therefore
• The rock debris is called glacial till.
• It is a random mixture of
• Most of this deposition takes place in
warmer lowland areas.
• As the , this lowland area is
covered in , so thick it
.
of landforms are then
created as a result:

.
• Some of these landforms are shown in
Diagram A.
What are the different types of moraine?
• When they push and
transport a lot of .
• Then, as they melt and recede(go or move),
large of loose debris are
left behind.
• At the of the glacier, debris is
at the melting ice front.
• This gradually grows into a huge
called a .
• Scientists find
because they show how far the glacier
advanced before it began to melt.
• Debris at the sides of the glacier forms

• As the glacier melts and gets smaller, it

deposits this ridge and the sides, forming
.
• When two glaciers meet, often

a .
• These medial moraines are also deposited
as the glacier begins to melt.
• Erratics = very large boulders that have been carried a long way by the glacier. When
the ice melts, the boulders drop. They are formed from a very different rock from
the bedrock they are deposited on.
• Drumlin = smooth, egg-shaped hills that are 100-800m long, and 25-100 m high.
They are usually found in groups. They are formed from glacial till, deposited by the
glacier while the ice is still moving. The end facing the glacier while the ice is still
moving. The end facing the glacier often has a steeper slope than the other end.
• Moraine = debris that has been carried by the glacier, forming long ridges, made up
of till. The moraine is given different names depending on where on the glacier it is
deposited.
• Glacial till= the debris that had been transported by the glacier is deposited, where
it melts. It is made up of a mixture of rocks and clay.
• Outwash plains= as the glacier melts, streams flow away from the glacier. These
powerful streams are swollen by meltwater. They transport large amounts the
debris from the glacier snout. The largest and heaviest debris is difficult to move so
it is left as a moraine. The lightest clay-sized particles are carried furthest away from
the snout, eventually deposited as outwash plains.
The Gangotri Glacier, India, in the Himalayas
• The glacier is currently 30.2 km long and between 0.5 and 2.5 km
wide.
• The largest in the region
• Cover 17% of the Himalayas and form the largest body of ice outside
the polar caps
• About 15,000 Himalayan glaciers feed major rivers such as the Indus,
Ganga and Brahmaputra.
The work of a glaciologist
• Conduct fieldwork
• Measure the width or punch holes
• Run tests on the ice cores
• Data-logging
• Remote time lapse cameras
• Space technology providing satellite images
• Analyze back in office