Glaciers in General
These glaciers are massive ice sheets that cover huge areas of land and spread outward.
What are continental glaciers?
Glaciers need cold temperatures and enough of this yearly material to build up over time.
What is snowfall?
This zone is where snow and ice are added to a glacier.
What is the zone of accumulation?
This erosion process happens when rocks frozen into the bottom of a glacier scrape against bedrock.
What is abrasion?
Glaciers helped create millions of these across Canada by carving depressions that later filled with water.
What are lakes?
These smaller glaciers form in mountain regions and move downhill through valleys.
What are alpine glaciers?
This is the elevation above which snow remains all year.
What is the snow line?
This zone is where ice is lost through melting, evaporation, or breaking off.
What is the zone of ablation?
This erosion process happens when meltwater freezes in cracks and moving ice pulls rock away.
What is plucking?
On the Canadian Shield, glaciers removed much of this, making farming difficult in many areas.
What is soil?
This warmer period occurs between glacial advances, and we are currently living in one.
What is an interglacial period?
This term describes precipitation caused when moist air rises over mountains, cools, and releases rain or snow.
What is orographic precipitation?
This happens when the amount of ice added equals the amount of ice lost.
What is equilibrium?
This is a rock carried by a glacier and deposited far from its original source.
What is an erratic?
This process happens when Earth’s crust slowly rises after the weight of ice sheets is removed.
What is isostatic rebound?
During the last ice age, some ice sheets covering Canada were this thick.
What is up to 2 km thick?
This small ice pellet stage forms as snow is compacted and changed by freezing and thawing.
What is firn?
This happens when more ice is added to a glacier than is lost.
What is glacier advance?
These smooth, elongated hills have a tapered end that points in the direction the glacier moved.
What are drumlins?
This famous moraine-dammed lake gets its turquoise colour from fine glacial sediment called rock flour.
What is Lake Louise or Moraine Lake
This epoch had repeated glacial advances and retreats.
What is the Pleistocene Epoch?
This process happens when meltwater at the base of a glacier reduces friction and helps the ice slide.
What is basal slippage?
This happens when the glacier’s front edge appears to move backward because melting is faster than replacement.
What is glacier retreat?
These long, winding ridges of sand and gravel are sometimes called upside-down riverbeds.
What are eskers?
These glacially carved valleys can support agriculture, roads, railways, towns, and cities.
What are U-shaped valleys?