59

Lindsay Frost

Glaciation
MOVING ICE is one of the main forces that has
Crevasse Sérac
shaped, and continues to shape, the Earth’s surface.
In the past, the Earth’s climate was much colder and
large areas of land away from the Equator were
Faster
covered with massive sheets of ice. These cold periods
Glacial flow
are known as Ice Ages. The last Ice Age lasted from
ice with
1.6 million years ago to 10,000 years ago. Ice still rock Rocks grind, scratch,
exists in areas with high mountains (e.g. ice caps in fragments Slower smooth and polish
Norway) and in areas close to the poles (e.g. the ice flow
sheet in Antarctica). The weight of the ice sheets, in
some places 3 km deep, pushes the continental Land (rock and soil)
crust down into the soft mantle underneath. After
1 The abrasion process
the ice sheets melt the land slowly rises again. Parts
of Scandinavia are still rising 10,000 years after the
last Ice Age! The effects of the Ice Ages are still visible Stage 1
today in both lowland and highland areas, and ice Glacier
continues to alter the land surface in some areas. ice Meltwater

Meltwater seeps into

Accumulation and erosion cracks

At high altitude and above the snowline, winter

snows do not melt, but instead accumulate in
Jointed rock
sheltered hollows. After several years the layers above Glacier
‘squash’ the snow layers underneath. Air is forced out ice
and forms compact snow, known as névé, and Stage 2
eventually glacial ice is created. The weight of new
snow, and the action of gravity, cause the ice to move Meltwater freezes,
out of the hollow under its own weight and a glacier expands and lifts
is created. Once on the move, ice begins to erode the blocks of rock
land in two ways:
2 The quarrying/plucking process
• by abrasion, where pieces of
rock (moraine) frozen into the
1800

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00

ice are scraped over the land as

00

Zermatt
0

20
190

21

22
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1603
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1700

the ice moves, removing soil 23

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27

24
and scratching bare rock
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Hö

(Figure 1), and Findel Alp

1689
2600
• by quarrying and plucking, 2500
where ice freezes onto rock 2400
R.Findelbach
2300
surfaces and, as the ice moves, 2200

it pulls out loose blocks of rock 210

0
h
2000 ac
or fragments and carries them u ttb
away (Figure 2). 1900
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2000
2100 e ra
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0 250 m
0

0
220 2300 00
270

2400 25 0 2765
2 60

3 Contour map of part of the Swiss Alps near Zermatt

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 An important weathering process common in glacial areas is
freeze–thaw action. This is where water gets into cracks in the rock
during the day, and then freezes at night. The ice expands in the cracks,
causing pressure and splitting the rock. This forms angular fragments of
rock, which fall onto the ice, or collect, at the bottom of the slope forming 1 Study Figure 3. Draw an
accurate cross-section from
a scree.
Höhbalmen to Gugle (you
may need to ask your
Erosion landforms teacher to help you with this
activity).
Ice is a very powerful erosive force, and many
landforms in upland areas are large and dramatic.
The hollows in which ice accumulates are made
bigger, forming corries high up on the sides of
mountains (Figure 4). When there are three or more
corries on a mountain, the peak becomes steeper and
is shaped like a pyramid. In between the corries there
are narrow ridges, which are called arêtes.

Freeze–thaw
action

Zone of accumulation

Plucking
Corrie glacier
ng Ab r a
r r yi sion
Abrasion Qua
5 The Matterhorn in Europe, viewed from the south-east

4 Formation of a corrie

The ice moves out of the corrie like a tongue to form a valley glacier. A
glacier’s surface is not smooth; it is covered with deep cracks, called
crevasses, and ridges of ice. It is also covered with rock fragments, which
can give a glacier a dirty surface. Glaciers can move at a speed of up to 15 2 Draw a sketch of the
metres per day. They deepen and widen the main valley, turning the valley photo in Figuure 5. On
from a V-shape to a U-shape. This means that side valleys are left ‘hanging’ your sketch label the
high up on the steep rocky sides, and spurs, which rivers flowed around, are following features:
cut through (truncated) by the less flexible ice (Figure 6). • glacier
• corrie
• arête
• pyramidal peak.
3 On a copy of Figure 6,
label the following
features:
• truncated spur
• waterfall
• hanging valley
• scree slope
• floor of U-shaped
valley.

6 The Yosemite Valley, California, USA

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 rock 2835 rock
N rock
rock and 2972 moraine 2783
scree

ice
ice Matterhorn ice
2841 glacier ice
scree 2960
r
ARE e
TE c re
rock
n ds
Tiefenmatten CORRIE 3400 c ka
3331 ice ro
glacier
i TE
i ARE
2972 i rock
4003
r CORRIE 4478 rock
ice 4249 CORRIE
r rock

AR
4191 ice

ET
2982

E
r Pyramidal Furg
r E TE 3830 glacier
3536 AR 3991 peak
3560 r

roc
rock
ice

k
ice r
ice

rock
ice ice ice
ice
3145 ice scree
3289
ice CORRIE
rock and moraine 3355
2897 scree 2913
ice rock
3039 Direction
of view,
2784 scree Figure 5
0 0.5 1 km 2802
ice
7 Sketch map of the Matterhorn, a
pyramidal peak

4 Study Figure 7 and refer to b Which face of the e In which mountain range is the
an atlas. mountain has less ice? Matterhorn?
Why this side?
a On a copy of the map, 5 How could you measure the speed
colour in: c How high above sea level of a glacier, and movement of the
• ice in light blue is the top of the mountain? ice within a glacier?
• rock and scree in d Which two countries share
brown a border through the
• moraine in orange. Matterhorn?

If global temperatures remain low, glaciers advance and merge to form an

ice sheet. Ice sheets still cover Greenland and Antarctica today. In
Antarctica the ice is so deep that it has buried valleys and mountains.
Some of the mountain peaks stick up through the surface and these are
called nunataks.

Deposition landforms
When global temperatures rise, melting or ablation takes place. Glaciers
stop or retreat within their valleys. When this happens the moraine (rock
fragments) carried by the ice is dumped at the end of the glacier. This is
called a terminal moraine.

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 Ice sheets move more slowly than glaciers and deposit rather than erode
rock material. The landforms created by ice sheets are quite different.
• Till covers large areas of lowland. Till is an unsorted mixture of rock
debris, dropped by an ice sheet (e.g. East Anglia).
• Drumlins are large (e.g. 450 metres long, 250 metres wide, 15
metres high), smooth, egg-shaped heaps of moraine. They are found
in groups around highland areas where the ice slowed down and lost
energy, depositing the moraine, and then flowed over and smoothed
it into the egg shape.
• Eskers are low, long thin ridges of sand and gravel deposited by
streams of meltwater flowing from a melting ice sheet (Figure 8). A
meltwater stream carries
moraine to the edge of the ice Ice retreat
sheet, where it is dumped in a
heap. As the ice retreats this
heap is added to, forming the Ice sheet
long thin ridge of an esker.
• Meltwater is an important Meltwater and moraine in tunnel
Esker
method by which moraine is
deposited. The water washes
out rock particles from the ice, Till
sorts them by weight, and Layered outwash deposits above till
spreads them out over lowland
areas in layers (Figure 8). 8 Formation of an esker

Periglaciation
Glaciation also affects the landscape around the areas covered by ice. If
the climate is cold all year for many years, the ground becomes
permanently frozen – this is known as permafrost. Northern Canada and
northern Russia have permafrost. In Siberia the ground is frozen to a
depth of 300 metres! In the short summers the upper layer of the
permafrost melts, creating an active layer in which freezing and thawing
6 Choose one of the glacial
moves the soil and stones around to form patterns on the surface. features listed below to
investigate. You may wish to
Conclusion look at some websites, as
well as the school and
There is much concern about the rise in the Earth’s temperature as a Geography department
result of air pollution. This is known as the greenhouse effect. Some libraries. Do not copy
people think that glaciers and ice sheets may melt, causing sea levels to information or just print off
rise. While sea ice may melt (e.g. in the Arctic Ocean) it is likely that more lots of information! Make
snowfall will accumulate in mountainous areas. This is because: sure that you:
• evaporation from the sea will increase • describe the feature
• more moisture is therefore put into the air, which in turn will bring ... • explain how it is formed
• heavier snowfalls over the continents in winter. • include a simple, labelled
line diagram
If there is more snowfall, some glaciers and ice sheets will actually grow.
• name and locate an
example.

Lateral moraine Crag and tail Medial moraine Fjord

Kame Ribbon lake Outwash deposits Pingo
Glacial erratic Kettle hole Loess
Iceberg Roches moutonnées

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