Glacial Landscapes

Glacial Landforms
By Colin Bowen
colin.bowen@colorado.edu colin.bowen@colorado.edu
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Erosional Landforms Created by Alpine Glaciation

Cirque Arte Col Horn Bergschrund Tarn Paternoster Lake Hanging Valley V & U shaped Valleys Fjord Erratics Truncated Spurs
Cirque
Cirque: A scooped-out, amphitheater shaped basin at the head of an alpine glacier.
Artes
Artes: (knife-edge in French) A sharp sawtooth or serrated ridge that divides two cirque basins.
Col
Col: A saddle-like narrow depression formed by two headward eroding cirques that reduce an arte.
Horn
Horn: A pyramidal, sharp-pointed peak that results when several cirques glaciers gorge an individual mountain summit from all sides.
Bergschrund
Bergschrund: These form when a crevasse or wide crack opens along the headwall of a glacier; most visible in the summer when covering snow is gone.
Tarns
Tarns: A small mountain lake especially one that collects in a cirque basin behind risers of rock material or in an ice gouged depression.
Paternoster Lakes
Paternoster Lake: One of a series of small, circular stair-stepped lake formed in individual rock basins aligned down the course of a glaciated valley.
Hanging Valleys
Hanging Valley: Valleys carved by tributary glaciers that are left standing high above the primary valley floor.
V & U shaped Valleys

V-Shaped valleys are typically formed from streams or rivers slowly cutting through the earth.
U-Shaped valleys occur in post glaciation conditions where the continual freeze and thaw has weathered away the rock walls.
Fjord
Fjord: A drowned glaciated valley or glacial trough along a seacoast.
Erratics
Erratics: An unique rock carried by a glacial formation that deviates in size and or type relative to the native area.
Truncated Spurs: Occur where a glacier
carves its way though rock, cutting off the edges of interlocking spurs.
Depositional Landforms Created by Alpine Glaciation
Glacial Drift: A general term for all glacial deposits both sorted and unsorted. Stratified Drift: Sediments deposited by glacial meltwater that are sorted by size. Tills: Unstratified and unsorted debris from ice deposits. Moraines: Valley Train Deposit:
Moraines
Lateral Moraines: A deposition of sediments along both sides of a glacier. Medial Moraine: A deposition of sediments between two lateral moraines. Terminal Moraine: Eroded debris that is dropped at the glaciers farthest extent.
Valley Train Deposit

Valley Train Deposits: Material deposited downvalley of a glacier via melt-water.
Erosional and Depositional Landforms Created by Continental Glaciation

Till Plain: Outwash Plain: Esker: Kettle: Kame: Roche Mountonne: Drumlin:
Till Plain
Till Plain: Forms behind a end moraine; it features unstratified coarse till, has low and rolling relief, and has a deranged drainage pattern.
Outwash Plain
Outwash Plains: Are Glacial stream deposits of stratified drift from melt-water, braided, and overloaded. They occur beyond a glacial morainal deposit.
Esker
Esker: A sinuously curving, narrow deposit of coarse gravel that forms along a melt-water stream channel, developing in a tunnel beneath a glacier.
Kettle
Forms when an isolated block of ice persists in a ground moraine, an outwash plain or valley floor after a glacier retreats; as the block finally melts, it leaves behind a steep sided hole that frequently fills with water.
Kame
Kame: A depositional feature of glaciation; a small hill of poorly sorted sand and gravel that accumulates in crevasses or in ice caused indentations in the surface.
Roche Mountonne:
Roche Mountonne: An asymmetrical hill of exposed bedrock; displays a gently sloping upstream side that has been smoothed and polished by a glacier and an abrupt, steep downstream side.
Drumlin
Drumlin: composed of till (unstratified, unsorted) and is streamline in the direction of continental ice movement-blunt end upstream and tapered end downstream with a rounded summit.
Periglacial Landscapes
Periglacial: Cold climate processes, landforms, and topographic features along the margins of glaciers, past and present; periglacial characteristics exist on more than 20% of the earths land surface; includes
Permafrost Frost action Ground ice
Geography of Permafrost
Permafrost: Forms when soil or rock temperature remains below 0 degrees Celsius for at least two years in areas consider periglacial. Based on temperature rather than the presence of water.
Continuous and Discontinuous Permafrost

Continuous Area: Regions poleward of the -7 degree Celsius mean annual temperature isotherm. Affects all surfaces except those under deep lakes or rivers Discontinuous Area: Disappears near the -1 degree Celsius mean annual temperature isotherm.
Cryotic (frozen) Noncryotic (unfrozen) Alpine Permafrost: Microclimatic factors such as slope orientation and snow cover are important in sustaining these lower latitude regions
The Colorado Rockies experience continuous permafrost down to an elevation of 11,150ft and discontinuous permafrost to 5600ft.
Active Layer: Seasonally frozen ground between the subsurface permafrost and the ground layer.
Ground Ice
Ground Ice: Subsurface water that is frozen in regions of permafrost.
Pore Ice: Subsurface water frozen in the soils pore spaces. Lenses/Veins: channels extending in any direction Segregated Ice: Layer of buried ice that increases in mass by accreting water as the ground freezes Intrusive Ice: The freezing of water injected under pressure, as in pingo Wedge Ice: Surface water entering a crack and freezing.
Frost Action
The 9% expansion of water as it freezes creates a strong mechanical force. Frost Heaving: (vertical movement) Frost Thrusting: (horizontal movement) Cryoturbation: Soil horizons may be disturbed by frost action and appear churned.
Frost Action Landforms

Pingo: Large area of frozen ground can develop a heaved up, circular, ice cored mound. Palsa: Round or elliptical mound of peat containing a thin perennial ice lense, rather than a core. Patterned Ground: An area with a system of ground ice and frost action develops sorted and unsorted accumulations of rock at the surface that take the shape of polygons.
Gelifluction and Solifuction

Solifuction: The flow of soil during a thaw cycle from high to lower elevation. Gelifluction: The flow of soil during a thaw cycle from high to lower elevation during the presence of ground ice or permafrost. Resulting in the flattening of the landscape with noticeable sag marks.
Human Impact

Glacial Landscapes

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Glacial Landscapes

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Glacial Landforms

Erosional Landforms Created by Alpine Glaciation

Cirque: A scooped-out, amphitheater shaped basin at the head of an alpine glacier.

V & U shaped Valleys

Truncated Spurs: Occur where a glacier

Depositional Landforms Created by Alpine Glaciation

Valley Train Deposit

Erosional and Depositional Landforms Created by Continental Glaciation

Continuous and Discontinuous Permafrost

Frost Action Landforms

Gelifluction and Solifuction

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