Glaciers

Glaciers: a part of two basic cycles

in the Earth system
 Glaciers are a part of both the hydrologic cycle
and rock cycle
 Glacier – a thick mass of ice that forms over
land from the compaction and recrystallization
of snow ( precipitation in the water cycle) and
shows evidence of past or present flow.
Glaciers erode and transport sediment and are
part of the rock cycle.
 Types of Glaciers
 Valley, or alpine glaciers – form in
mountainous areas
 Ice sheets, or continental glaciers
• Large scale
• e.g., Over Greenland and Antarctica
• Other types
• Ice caps and piedmont glaciers
Chapter 6 Opening Figure
Currently ice sheets cover Greenland
and Antarctica
Ice Cap Glacier, Iceland
Piedmont Glacier
 Formation of glacial ice
 Glaciers form in areas where more snow
falls in winter than melts during the
summer
 Steps in the formation of glacial ice
 Air infiltrates snow

 Snowflakes become smaller, thicker, and

more spherical
 Air is forced out
 Formation of glacial ice
 Steps in the formation of glacial ice
 Snow is recrystallized into a much
denser mass of small grains called firn
 Once the thickness of the ice and snow
exceeds 50 meters, firn fuses into a
solid mass of interlocking ice crystals –
glacial ice
 Glacial ice will flow downhill under the
influence of gravity
 Movement of Glacial Ice

• Zone of accumulation – the area where a

glacier forms

• Zone of wastage – the area where there is

a net loss due to melting
 Movement of glacial ice
 Budget of a glacier
 The balance, or lack of balance, between
accumulation at the upper end of the glacier,
and loss at the lower end is referred to as the
glacial budget
 If accumulation exceeds loss (called ablation), the
glacial front advances
 If ablation increases and/or accumulation
decreases, the ice front will retreat
The glacial budget
 Movement of Glacial Ice
• Types of glacial movements
• Plastic flow

• Slipping along the ground

• Zone of fracture
• Uppermost 50 meters

• Crevasses form in brittle ice

 Glacial Erosion
 Glaciers erode by

• Plucking – lifting of rock blocks

• Abrasion
• Rock flour (pulverized rock)

• Striations (grooves in the bedrock)

Glacial grooves cut by pebbles/cobbles frozen
in the bottom of the ice moving over surface

Polished surface from sand/silt

frozen in ice moving over surface
 Glacial Erosion
 Landforms created by glacial erosion
• Glacial trough
• Hanging valley
• Cirque
• Arête
• Horn
• Fiord
Erosional landforms created
by alpine glaciers
Horn

U-shaped
Valley
with
Pater
Noster
Lakes
Glacier Entering Ocean
Flooded Valley = Fiord
 Glacial Deposits
 Glacial deposits
• Glacial drift
• All sediments of glacial origin
• Were once frozen in the ice or rafted along on
top of the ice
• Particles of all sizes from clay size to boulders
• Types of glacial drift
• Till – material that is deposited directly by
ice
• Stratified drift – sediment deposited by
meltwater
 Glacial till is typically
unstratified and unsorted
Close-up view of the boulder in
the previous slide
Glacial
“Erratic”
Rafted
along on
top of ice
and stranded
when ice
melted.
 Glacial Deposits
 Glacial deposits
• Depositional features
• Moraines – layers or ridges of till

• Types of moraines

• Lateral

• Medial

• End

• Ground
Moraines
The glacial budget

End
Moraine
Figure 6.16
 Glacial Deposits
 Glacial deposits
• Depositional features
• Outwash plain

• Kettles

• Drumlins

• Eskers

• Kames
Glacial depositional features

Recessional moraine
 The Ice Age
 Glaciers of the past
• Ice Age

• Began 2 to 3 million years ago

• Division of geological time is called the

Pleistocene epoch
• Ice covered 30% of Earth’s land area
Maximum extent of ice
during the Ice Age
 Effects of Glacial Ages
 Glaciers of the past
• Indirect effects of Ice Age glaciers

• Migration of animals and plants

• Rebounding upward of the crust

• Worldwide change in sea level

• Climatic changes
Glaciers: a part of two basic cycles
in the Earth system
 Causes of glaciation
• Successful theory must account for
• Cooling of Earth, as well as
• Short-term climatic changes
• Proposed possible causes
• Plate tectonics
• Continents were arranged differently

• Changes in oceanic circulation

Figure 6.23
Glaciers: a part of two basic cycles
in the Earth system
 Causes of glaciation
• Proposed possible causes
• Variations in Earth’s orbit
• Milankovitch hypothesis

• Shape (eccentricity) of Earth’s orbit varies

• Angle of Earth’s axis (obliquity) changes

• Axis wobbles (precession)

• Changes in climate over the past several hundred

thousand years are closely associated with variations
in Earth’s orbit
Figure 6.24