Interesting Glacier Factoids
What is a glacier?
A large mass of ice that moves slowly over _____
A large mass of ice that moves slowly over land
Unsorted sediment deposited directly by a glacier
What is till?
This is the fastest moving type of glacier, found in mountains?
What is a valley glacier?
Average rate of movement for continental glaciers
few cm/day up to a few m/day
What conditions will the cause the front of a glacier to retreat? (Be sure to use the words melting and accumulation in your answer)
When melting is greater than accumulation.
A stream that only flows after it rains, and only for a short time before becoming completely dry. These streams are common in arid regions, where there is little precipitation and a lack of moisture.
What is ephemeral?
Balance or lack of balance between accumulation at the upper end of a glacier and loss, or wastage, at the lower end. If more ice accumulates than melts, the glacier advances.
what is glacial budget?
Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of ________ on Earth
Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth
Glacier drift that is deposited as __________ _________ by the glacier meltwater.
what is stratified drift?
Glaciers which are enormous ice masses that flow in all directions from one or more centers and cover everything but the highest land. They cover very large regions where the climate is extremely cold.
What is an ice sheet or continental glacier?
What shape are valleys that are created by glaciers. The original V-shaped valley is changed.
What are U shaped valleys?
A mass of rocks and sediment carried down and deposited by a glacier, typically as ridges at its edges or extremity.
Warm is moraine?
Landforms made of loose sand deposited in mounds or ridges that is created by wind and gravity.
what are sand dunes?
Unsorted sediment deposited directly by a glacier
what is till?
Glaciers are masses of ice that flow under the influence of _____.
What is gravity
As glacial ice and its load of rock fragments slide over the bedrock they work like sandpaper to smooth and polish the surface below, producing pulverized rock called rock flour. This process is called _________.
What is abrasion?
A bowl shaped depression at the head of a glacial valley surrounded on three sides by steep rock walls, where ice accumulates at the head of a valley glacier is called a(n) _______.
What is a cirque?
Windblown unstratified silt that blankets the landscape, and covers a large area.
What is loess?
A sharp, jagged ridge or crest that separates two valleys formed by glaciers.
what is arete?
When loose soil is removed by wind, leaving only the coarser, stony particles.
what is desert pavement?
The uppermost portion of a glacier which is brittle. When the glacier moves over irregular terrain it can cause large cracks up to 50 meters deep to form here.
what is the zone of fracture?
Glaciers cover _______ percent of the Earth's land surface?
What is 10%
Forms when a chunk of glacier is partially buried and when it melts the depression forms a small lake or pond.
What are kettle lakes or kettle holes
The lowest elevation in an area that remains covered in snow all year long.
What is the snow line?
In general, when sediment is laid down by a glacier is is called ______.
What is drift?
A sandy depression or hollow in a desert that's caused by wind erosion.
What is a blowout?
The lifting and removal of loose particles such as clay and silt by wind from the surface of dry, uncemented areas like deserts, floodplains, and dry lake beds.
what is deflation?
A crack in the top 30 to 50 meters of a glacier, which can be covered up by snow, and hence is very dangerous.
what is a crevasse? (+ 100 if pronounced correctly - emphasis on the 2nd syllable.)
About what percent of the world's freshwater is in glaciers?
What is 70% (69% --> +100)
A sharp, pointed mountain peak formed by glacial erosion when multiple glaciers erode toward each other is called a(n) _____.
What is a horn?
What are the two types of glacial erosion?
What are plucking and abrasion?
What geologic time period were the glaciers last covering a large percentage of the land on the earth?
What is 15,000 to 25,000 years ago?
What is the driest desert in the world, and where is it located (country)?
Whats is the Atacame Desert in Chile?
+ 300 just for name.
Where is the largest desert in the world?
Also, What does the word Gobi mean - Gobi Desert in Mongolia?
Antarctica
"waterless place"
What are the two types of glacier movement, one beneath a cratin depth and the other above that depth. Explain the two processes as well as giving their names.
plastic flow: movement of the ice within the ice of a glacier 30 to 50m below the surface. Under high enough pressure, the normally brittle ice begins to distort and change shape without breaking.
basal slip: The act of a glacier sliding over the rock bed due to meltwater under the ice acting as a lubricant. The glacier actually slips and slides down the hill.