Cold Environments

Question 0

Arêtes

Answer 0

Steep sided knife-edge mountain ridge often marking the edges of a corrie or the watershed between two valleys (troughs)

Question 1

Esker

Answer 1

A sinuous ridge found running parallel to the pre-existing glacier. It is stratified and composed of sub-rounded and rounded sands and gravels. Found on the floor of a glacial trough. Formed by a fluvioglacial deposition in a meandering sub-glacial river.

Question 2

Basal Sliding

Answer 2

Large scale and often quite sudden movement of a portion of ice in a glacier usually lubricated by sub-glacial meltwater.

Question 3

Cold-based glacier

Answer 3

Glacier where the base temperature is too low to enable liquid water to be present and where the glacier will probably be frozen to the ground.

Question 4

Compressional flow

Answer 4

Thickening of ice (glacier) due to a decrease in the long profile valley floor gradient.

Question 5

Corries

Answer 5

Enlarged armchair-shaped hollows on a mountainside characterised by a steep backwall and a hollowed-out bowl, occasionally containing a lake (tarn).

Question 6

Drumlins

Answer 6

Egg-shaped depositional features, often in groups -swarms- resulting from the moulding of sub-glacial -ground- moraine by moving ice over the top

Question 7

Extensional flow

Answer 7

Stretching or thinning of ice (glacier) in response to an increase in gradient (steep slope)

Question 8

Fragile environments

Answer 8

Natural environments where processes operate slowly and where ecosystems can be easily harmed and take a long time to recover

Question 9

Frost heave

Answer 9

Small-scale upwards displacement of soil particles resulting from the freezing and expansion of water just below the ground surface

Question 10

Frost shattering

Answer 10

Also know as freeze-thaw, a physical weathering process involving alternating freezing and thawing of water in joints and pores within rocks

Question 11

Glacial surge

Answer 11

Relatively rapid but usually short-term movement of a glacier

Question 12

Glacial system

Answer 12

Inter-relationships between components in a glacial environment, often subdivided into inputs, processes and outputs

Question 13

Glacial troughs

Answer 13

Glacially-enlarged river valley characterised by having a broad flat base and steep sided (U-shaped)

Question 14

Glacier budget

Answer 14

Balance between inputs (accumulation), such as snowfall and avalanches, and outputs (ablation), such as calving and melting

Question 15

Hanging Valleys

Answer 15

Tributary glacial trough perched up on the side of a main glacial trough and often marked by a waterfall

Question 16

Ice wedges

Answer 16

V-shaped ice-filled features formed by the enlargement of surface cracks by frost action. In time the cracks will become infilled with sediment

Question 17

Internal deformation

Answer 17

Small scale inter-and intra-granular movement or deformation of ice crystals in response to gravity and mass

Question 18

Kames

Answer 18

Mounds or hillocks found on the floor of a glacial trough formed by fluvioglacial deposition, e.g Kame terraces, formed by deposition in a marginal lake

Question 19

Meltwater channels

Answer 19

Often narrow and steep-sided valleys formed by torrents of meltwater at the end of a glacial period

Question 20

Moraines

Answer 20

Glacial deposits comprising largely angular and unsorted debris transported on (supraglacial), in (englacial), or under (sub-glacial) the ice. Many types of moraine can be identified, such as lateral (edge of glacier), medial (centre of glacier) and terminal (snout of glacier)

Question 21

Nivation hollows

Answer 21

Shallow hillside hollow resulting from a concentration of snow-related processes such as frost shattering and slumping

Question 22

Nivation

Answer 22

Snow-related processes, such as weathering and mass movement, that operate collectively to form shallow hollows in the landscape

Question 23

Outwash plains

Answer 23

Often vast area of well-sorted and rounded sand and gravel deposits extending for some distance in front of a glacier, carried by meltwater

Question 24

Patterned ground

Answer 24

Concentration of large stones on ground surface, usually associated with polygonal patterns of ice wedges, often forming stripes on slopes due to gravity

Question 25

Periglacial

Answer 25

Environments experiencing long cold winters and short warm summers, typically with frozen ground (permafrost) but not covered by ice (glacial)

Question 26

Permafrost

Answer 26

Permanently frozen soil and rock, a key characteristic of a periglacial environment

Question 27

Pingos

Answer 27

Ice-cored mounds found in periglacial environments, formed by the freezing of sub-surface water bodies and subsequent swelling of the ground surface

Question 28

Pyramidal peaks

Answer 28

Remnant of intense glacial erosion taking the form of a very steep-sided isolated peak - 3 or more corries eroding back to back

Question 29

Rotational flow

Answer 29

Concave or arcuate flow typically experienced in a corrie and responsible for increased erosion (over-deepening)

Question 30

Solifluction lobes

Answer 30

Extended lobes (tongues) of saturated soil formed by solifluction on a hillside

Question 31

Solifluction

Answer 31

Gradual downhill slumping of saturated soil and rock, usually in summer when the upper surface zone (active layer) melts and becomes heavy and waterlogged

Question 32

Truncated Spurs

Answer 32

Former interlocking spurs that have been eroded by a glacier to form a steep valley side

Question 33

Warm-based glacier

Answer 33

Glacier where the base temperature is high enough to enable meltwater to exist and therefore basal sliding to occur