PHY 205 Glaciers Short Paper

Brittany DelaCruz

10/11/2019

Glaciers

Glaciers. Everyone learns about them in middle school and hears the story of how the

Earth was covered in ice. There were giant mammoths, sabretooth tigers and a plethora of

strange animals that only seem fit for the Ice Age movie franchise, right? But what is a glacier

and how do they move? Where would we go if there was an ice age now?

A glacier is officially defined as “a thick ice mass that forms over hundreds or thousands

of years” (Tarbuck). They can come in many different forms and sizes. There are Alpine or

Valley Glaciers that form high up in the mountains and flow down the valleys that were

originally formed by streams. Ice Sheets are humungous sheets of ice that can over an entire

continent, like Greenland and Antarctica. Ice Shelves are when glaciers flow into the ocean and

create a shelf of ice that protrudes from the land into the water. This is generally where ice bergs

come from as ice breaks off the glacier and is carried away by the water. There are a few other

types of glaciers: ice caps, outlet glaciers, and piedmont glaciers. They generally exist today high

up in the mountains or in places where it is cold and snows a lot (Tarbuck).

Glaciers play an important part in two of Earth’s cycles: the rock cycle and the water

cycle. The rock cycle explains the creation, movement, and destruction of rocks. Glaciers help

with the movement or the weathering and erosion of rocks. They scrape and grind up rocks into

sediments and then deposit them sometimes thousands of miles away. Over time these deposits

can transform entire landscapes (Brayson).

 The water cycle plays a big role as well. Water evaporates into the clouds and falls back

down as snow. The snow collects on the glacier and when summer comes around it melts in huge

quantities. The water runs off the glacier and into rivers, lakes, and streams and eventually back

to the ocean. Nearly 1/3 of the world’s population depends on seasonal meltwaters (Davies,

2019)!

How do we know that glaciers are moving? They are so big! How can something that

large move at all? We can answer this question by explaining briefly how they form. Snow falls

on a mountain and when summer comes not all of the snow melts away. The next year the same

thing happens, and the new layer of snow is packed on top of the old snow. Every year for tens,

then hundreds, then thousands of years this process of the new snow layering on top of the old

snow occurs. If you have ever picked up a bucket of water, then I am sure you can understand

how heavy water/snow can be. The layers of snow on top compress the layers on the bottom into

glacial ice (Brayson).

What does all this have to do with the glacier moving? Imagine you have an ice cube and

you place that ice cube in your hand. Then you press down on the ice cube with your other hand

as hard as you can. What will happen to the ice cube? The bottom of the ice cube melts and the

cube will begin to slide around on your hand. The same thing happens to glaciers. Geothermal

heat, the internal heat of the Earth, and the enormous pressure brought on by the weight of the

snow melts the bottom of the glacier. The water then acts as a lubricant between the surface of

the Earth and the glacier. The glacier begins to flow, ever so slowly, down the slope of the

mountain or out across the landscape. The glacier, massive in scale, carves out the landscape as it

moves completing its part in the rock cycle (Brayson).

 We don’t tend to think about glaciers too much in our everyday life but what if an ice age

were to happen today? Where on Earth would it be warm enough to survive? According to

experts on the subject, during the last ice age north America, northern Europe, and all of northern

Asia were covered in Ice sheets. Hundreds of millions of people, including myself, would need

to relocate closer to the equator. Land around the equator would be the most suitable for

agriculture and reasonable year-long temperatures. Sea level would drop drastically, and some

seas would dry up completely like the Mediterranean Sea, Torres Strait, Bass strait, and the

Bering Strait. One of the good things about lower sea levels are the lands along the coast that

would open for agriculture and settlements. There is no guarantee that a new ice age would look

anything like the last one, but one thing is for sure, the Earth would no longer be able to sustain

the current human population (Andrews, 2016). It is likely that millions would die from

starvation, exposure, and disease.

Sources:

Andrews, K. (2016, June 15). What causes an ice age and why do they matter? Retrieved

October 11, 2019, from https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-06-15/what-is-

an-ice-age-explainer/7185002.

Brayson, J., & Booth, K. (n.d.). 1G Kids. Retrieved October 11, 2019, from

http://www.onegeology.org/extra/kids/earthprocesses/glaciers.html.

Davies, B., & Davies, B. (2019, April 16). Glaciers as a water resource. Retrieved

October 11, 2019, from http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-

climate/glacier-recession/glaciers-as-a-water-resource/.

Tarbuck, E. J., Lutgens, F. K., Tasa, D. G. Earth. [MBS Direct]. Retrieved from

https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9780134286389/