Glacation

Question 1

What happened 1800 years ago?

Answer 1

Ice covered about 30% of the land in the world

Question 2

What is a glacier?

Answer 2

It is a large body of ice moving slowly down a slope or over a wide area of land.

Question 3

What are the three processes by which glaciation affects the landscape?

Answer 3

Erosion
Transportation
Deposition

Question 4

How does a glacier form?

Answer 4

They from in very cold places. Lots of snow falls but not all of it melts and this means that lots of different layers of snow lie on top of each other

Question 5

What is an ice sheet?

Answer 5

Masses of ice which cover large areas of a continent are called ice sheets.

Question 6

What is the glacier system?

Answer 6

It consists of inputs, transfers(flows), stores and outputs in the same way as a river

Question 7

Where do inputs come from (glacier system)

Answer 7

Avalanches and precipitation

Question 8

What are then outputs (glacier system)

Answer 8

Meltwater and evaporation

Question 9

Accumulation =

Ablation =

Answer 9

Accumulation = inputs > outputs 
Ablation = outputs >inputs

Question 10

What are the three main processes that operate in the glacier system?

Answer 10

Frost shattering or freeze thaw weathering
Abrasion
Plucking

Question 11

What is frost shattering?

Answer 11

It describes the action of glacial meltwater on joints, cracks and hollows in rock

Question 12

What happens when the temperature reaches freezing point?

Answer 12

The water inside the rock freezes, expands and causes the rocks to widen

Question 13

What is abrasion?

Answer 13

The moraine frozen into the glacier scours the valley sides and base and this is the sandpapering effect

Question 14

What is plucking?

Answer 14

The water at the bottom of the glacier freezes onto rock on the valley base and as the glacier moves, the rock is pulled away from the valley base.

Question 15

Name four landforms created by glacial erosion and deposition

Answer 15

Corries
Aretes
Pyramidal peaks
Glacial troughs

Question 16

What is a Corrie?

Answer 16

Snow collects in a natural hollow on the side of a mountain and it turns to ice over time and the hollow is deepened and widened by a Corrie glacier through the processes of abrasion and plucking.

Question 17

What is an Arête?

Answer 17

It is a ‘knife edged’ ridge formed between two corries

Question 18

How is a pyramidal peak formed?

Answer 18

It is formed when three or more corries are formed back to back

Question 19

What is a u shaped valley?

Answer 19

It is when a glacier moves down a mountain and makes a V shaped valley into a U shaped valley?

Question 20

What are the landforms created by glacial deposition?

Answer 20

Moraines
Drumlins
Erratics

Question 21

What is a moraine?

Answer 21

It is a type of landform that is created when a glacier deposits the material that it has been transporting.

Question 22

What are the types of moraine?

Answer 22

Terminal moraine
Lateral moraine 
Medial moraine 
Ground moraine 
Recessional moraine

Question 23

What are drumlins?

Answer 23

They are smooth mounds of deposited material that reach a kilometre or more in length

Question 24

What are striations?

Answer 24

They are scratches on material that the glacier is carrying

Question 25

What are erratics?

Answer 25

They are large boulders that have been carried by the glacier and then deposited in an area of different rock type

Question 26

What happens to a valley at sea level?

Answer 26

It forms a Fjord

Question 27

What was the mer de glace

Answer 27

A famous glacier found in the Alps