Glacial Erosional Processes

Question 1

List all types of glacial erosion

Answer 1

Crushing

Abrasion

Freeze thaw weathering

Plucking

Basal melting

Quarrying

Question 2

Define plucking

Answer 2

If the bedrock beneath a glacier has been weathered in periglacial times, or if the rock is full of joints, a glacier can detach large particles of rock and take them with it.

Question 3

Define abrasion

Answer 3

A type of glacial erosion that occurs when rock fragments that are frozen into the bottom of a glacier scrape and erode the valley floor.

These grind down the bedrock as the glacier moves over the rock like sand paper- this leaves behind striations

Question 4

Define crushing

Answer 4

Crushing is erosion caused by the sheer pressure exerted by rock fragments embedded at the base of a glacier

Question 5

Define Basal melting

Answer 5

Abrasion by meltwater, acting under great pressure, at the base of the glacier

Question 6

Define freeze thaw weathering

Answer 6

This is where cracks in rocks are filled with water, when this water freezes when temperatures drop and become ice, the cracks in the rock expand and cause for the rocks to be ripped apart