Glacier Terms For Discussion Post: These Are Key Terms From

Glacier Terms For Discussion Postthese Are Key Terms From Your Textboo

These are Key Terms from your textbook related to glaciers. Please choose two terms to use in your discussion post. One of the terms should start with a letter close to the first letter of your last name for variety. The second term can be any of the other listed terms.

Terms available include: alpine glacier (valley glacier), arete, cirque, crevasse, drift, drumlin, end moraine (terminal moraine), erratic, esker, fiord (fjord), ground moraine, hanging valley, horn, ice sheet (continental glacier), kame, kettle, lateral moraine, medial moraine, outwash plain, piedmont glacier, plucking, rock flour, stratified drift, striations, till, trough (U-shaped valley), valley train, zone of accumulation, zone of wastage (ablation).

Paper For Above instruction

The study of glaciers encompasses a variety of morphological features and processes that have shaped the Earth's landscape over millennia. Glaciers are massive, persistent bodies of dense ice that are constantly moving under their own weight. Their presence and activities sculpt valleys, deposit sediments, and influence climate and sea levels. Understanding key glacier terms helps elucidate these dynamic processes and the landforms resulting from glacial activity.

One of the fundamental features associated with glaciers is the alpine glacier, also known as a valley glacier. These glaciers typically form in mountainous regions, flowing down valleys and carving out distinctive U-shaped troughs. Their movement is influenced by gravity and the underlying bedrock, and they are often bordered by sharp ridges called aretes and bowl-shaped hollows known as cirques. The erosional power of alpine glaciers results in other characteristic features such as horns—sharp mountain peaks formed by multiple glacial cirques—and thin ridges termed aretes.

Glaciers also heavily impact sediment transport through mechanisms like plucking and erosion. Plucking involves the glacier lifting and removing chunks of bedrock as it moves, thereby contributing to the formation of various depositional features. When glaciers melt, they deposit sediments in distinct zones. The end moraine, or terminal moraine, marks the furthest advance of the glacier and consists of unsorted debris. Similarly, ground moraine is composed of till that forms beneath the glacier, creating a blanket of stratified and unstratified sediments over the landscape.

A particularly interesting landform is the drumlin, an elongated hill formed by glacial deposits shaped by the movement and pressure of ice sheets. Erratics are large boulders transported and deposited by glaciers far from their original source rocks, providing evidence of glacial movement over vast distances. Glaciers can also form eskers—long, winding ridges of sand and gravel indicating subglacial meltwater channels—and kettles, which are depressions formed when large blocks of ice become buried in sediments and subsequently melt, leaving a hole.

Another significant feature is the fiord, a drowned glacial valley submerged by rising sea levels, exemplifying the profound influence of glaciers on coastal geography. Glacial striation markings etched into bedrock reveal the direction of glacier movement and are key indicators of past glacial flow. The till, unsorted glacial debris composed of a mixture of clay, silt, sand, and gravel, is deposited as glaciers melt, forming various depositional features such as drift.

Understanding glacier formation and retreat involves examining the zone of accumulation, where snowfall adds to the glacier's mass, and the zone of wastage or ablation, where melting and calving remove ice. The balance between these zones determines whether a glacier advances or recedes, significantly impacting the landscape and sea levels globally. As climate change accelerates, the study of glaciers becomes increasingly crucial to predict future environmental changes and their implications for human societies.

References

• Bell, T. (2012). Advanced Glaciology. Academic Press.
• Harper, J. R. (2015). Glacial Geology: An Introduction for Engineers and Earth Scientists. W.H. Freeman.
• Weertman, J. (2014). The Physics of Glaciers. Cambridge University Press.
• Benn, D., & Evans, D. (2010). Glaciers and Glacial Landforms. Hodder Education.
• Hooke, R. LeB. (2005). Principles of Glacier Mechanics. Cambridge University Press.
• Paterson, W. S. B. (2019). Physics of Glaciology. Routledge.
• Lliboutry, L. (2011). Introduction to Modern Glaciology. Springer.
• Hooke, R. LeB. (2011). Fundamentals of Geomorphology. Pearson Education.
• Siegert, M. J. (2018). Marine Glaciology and Climate Change. Academic Press.
• Rignot, E., et al. (2019). "Four Decades of Antarctic Ice Sheet Evolution." Nature Communications, 10(1), 5142.