What is a glacier? Explain its types.
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A slowly moving mass or river of ice formed by the accumulation and compaction of snow on mountains or near the poles is known as Glacier.
Types of Glacier:-
▪ hanging Glacier
When a major valley glacier system retreats and thins, sometimes the tributary glaciers are left in smaller valleys high above the shrunken central glacier surface. These are called hanging glaciers.
▪ Cirque glaciers
Cirque glaciers are named for the bowl-like hollows they occupy, which are called cirques. Typically, they are found high on mountainsides and tend to be wide rather than long.
▪ Ice Aprons
These small, steep glaciers cling to high mountainsides. Like cirque glaciers, they are often wider than they are long. Ice aprons are common in the Alps and in New Zealand, where they often cause avalanches due to the steep inclines they occupy.
▪ Rock Glacier
Rock glaciers sometimes form when slow-moving glacial ice is covered by debris. They are often found in steep-sided valleys, where rocks and soil fall from the valley walls onto the ice. Rock glaciers may also form when frozen ground creeps downslope.
▪ Ice shelves
Ice shelves occur when ice sheets extend over the sea and float on the water. They range from a few hundred meters to over 1 kilometer (0.62 mile) in thickness. Ice shelves surround most of the Antarctic continent.
▪ Icefields
Icefields are similar to ice caps, except that their flow is influenced by the underlying topography, and they are typically smaller than ice caps.
▪ Ice caps
Ice caps are miniature ice sheets, covering less than 50,000 square kilometers (19,305 square miles). They form primarily in polar and sub-polar regions that are relatively flat and high in elevation.
▪ Ice stream
Ice streams are large ribbon-like glaciers set within an ice sheet—they are bordered by ice that is flowing more slowly, rather than by rock outcrop or mountain ranges. These huge masses of flowing ice are often very sensitive to changes such as the loss of ice shelves at their terminus or changing amounts of water flowing beneath them. The Antarctic ice sheet has many ice streams.
▪ Ice sheets
Found now only in Antarctica and Greenland, ice sheets are enormous continental masses of glacial ice and snow expanding over 50,000 square kilometers (19,305 square miles). The ice sheet on Antarctica is over 4.7 kilometers (3 miles) thick in some areas, covering nearly all of the land features except the Transantarctic Mountains, which protrude above the ice. Another example is the Greenland Ice Sheet. In the past ice ages, huge ice sheets also covered most of Canada (the Laurentide Ice Sheet) and Scandinavia (the Scandinavian Ice Sheet), but these have now disappeared, leaving only a few ice capsand mountain glaciers behind.
A slowly moving mass or river of ice formed by the accumulation and compaction of snow on mountains or near the poles is known as Glacier.
Types of Glacier:-
▪ hanging Glacier
When a major valley glacier system retreats and thins, sometimes the tributary glaciers are left in smaller valleys high above the shrunken central glacier surface. These are called hanging glaciers.
▪ Cirque glaciers
Cirque glaciers are named for the bowl-like hollows they occupy, which are called cirques. Typically, they are found high on mountainsides and tend to be wide rather than long.
▪ Ice Aprons
These small, steep glaciers cling to high mountainsides. Like cirque glaciers, they are often wider than they are long. Ice aprons are common in the Alps and in New Zealand, where they often cause avalanches due to the steep inclines they occupy.
▪ Rock Glacier
Rock glaciers sometimes form when slow-moving glacial ice is covered by debris. They are often found in steep-sided valleys, where rocks and soil fall from the valley walls onto the ice. Rock glaciers may also form when frozen ground creeps downslope.
▪ Ice shelves
Ice shelves occur when ice sheets extend over the sea and float on the water. They range from a few hundred meters to over 1 kilometer (0.62 mile) in thickness. Ice shelves surround most of the Antarctic continent.
▪ Icefields
Icefields are similar to ice caps, except that their flow is influenced by the underlying topography, and they are typically smaller than ice caps.
▪ Ice caps
Ice caps are miniature ice sheets, covering less than 50,000 square kilometers (19,305 square miles). They form primarily in polar and sub-polar regions that are relatively flat and high in elevation.
▪ Ice stream
Ice streams are large ribbon-like glaciers set within an ice sheet—they are bordered by ice that is flowing more slowly, rather than by rock outcrop or mountain ranges. These huge masses of flowing ice are often very sensitive to changes such as the loss of ice shelves at their terminus or changing amounts of water flowing beneath them. The Antarctic ice sheet has many ice streams.
▪ Ice sheets
Found now only in Antarctica and Greenland, ice sheets are enormous continental masses of glacial ice and snow expanding over 50,000 square kilometers (19,305 square miles). The ice sheet on Antarctica is over 4.7 kilometers (3 miles) thick in some areas, covering nearly all of the land features except the Transantarctic Mountains, which protrude above the ice. Another example is the Greenland Ice Sheet. In the past ice ages, huge ice sheets also covered most of Canada (the Laurentide Ice Sheet) and Scandinavia (the Scandinavian Ice Sheet), but these have now disappeared, leaving only a few ice capsand mountain glaciers behind.
Answered by
5
Glacier and it's types:
- A glacier is an accumulated clump of snow which is a result of the process of re-crystallization and graining of ice from repeated snowfalls.
- The types of glaciers are mountain glaciers, tidewater glaciers, piedmont glaciers, valley glaciers, hanging glaciers, ice aprons, cirque glaciers, rock glaciers, etc.
- Mountain glaciers: Glaciers are mainly formed at very high altitudes. Such glaciers are referred to as 'mountain glaciers' based on their orientation.
- Tidewater glaciers: The tidewater glaciers are formed on the mountains surrounded by oceans and extend down to the ocean from the top of the mountain. These glaciers are continuous and huge in length.
- Piedmont glacier: When a mountain glacier grows long enough to reach the plains and spreads on the plain, it is known as a piedmont glacier.
- Valley glaciers: The glaciers that form between the adjacent walls of valleys are called the valley glaciers. These glaciers are most commonly found in almost all snowclad high altitude places in the world.
- Hanging glaciers: As the name suggests, these glaciers are formed over cliffs and develop further to appear like they are suspended ahead of the cliff. Hanging glaciers are responsible for most avalanches.
- Ice aprons: Ice aprons are a thin and wide coating of snow gripping against the walls of mountains. They are usually very small in length.
- Cirque glaciers: These glaciers get their name from the 'cirques' they fill that are existent in the mountains. When there is an avalanche, the large bowl-like pits get filled with snow to gradually form a cirque glacier.
- Rock glaciers: When rock debris are strongly bound together by ice for a long period of time, rock glaciers are formed. These glaciers appear to be like stratified streams of pieces of rocks."
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