Ice On Land Flashcards
Where are glaciers found?
High altitudes,
Low altitude and high latitudes.
What do glaciers do?
They erode, transport and deposit huge quantities of material.
What is the formation of a glacier called?
The formation of a glacier and the process by which they shape the landscape sound them is called glaciation.
Glacial?
Is a period of ice advance associated with falling temperatures.
Interglacial?
Is a period of ice retreat associated with rising temperatures (currently Holocene period).
What is internal deformation?
Is when the weight of the ice causes the deformation of ice crystals.
This takes place most readily where pressures are highest.
Glacier
A long standing mass of ice that moves very slowly downhill.
What is basal sliding?
When meltwater at the base of a glacier acts as a lubricant and the glacier slides over the land
When do glaciers move fastest?
- Increasing slope
- Increasing thickness of ice
- Increasing snowfall
- Increasing meltwater at the base a glacier
What is eccentricity?
A change in the Earth’s orbit
What is obliquity?
The tilt of the Earth’s axis
What is precession?
The Earth’s axis tilt
How are glaciers formed?
- As SNOW falls it becomes compacted as more snow falls on top of it
- Air is expelled and each individual ice snowflakes turn into GRANULAR ICE crystals
- The ice becomes denser turning into FIRN
- Then the firn turns into GLACIAL ICE
What are the outputs of a glacier?
- Ablation: usually occuring at the snout where temperatures are their highest (or on surface in the summer (melting!))
- Calving: where chunks of ice break away at the snout
- Evaporation: water liquid to water vapour
- Sublimation: water solid to water vapour
What are some inputs to the system?
Avalanches of snow and ice can also provide inputs to the system
What happens when the glacial budget is positive?
- Winter
- Accumulation: high
- Ablation: low
- Glacier: advances
What happens when the glacial budget is negative?
- Summer
- Accumulation: low
- Ablation: high
- Glacier: retreats
What is the impact of the short term temperature changes?
Seasonal change
- Summer: negative glacial budget as ablation EXCEEDS accumulation
- Winter: positive glacial budget as accumulation EXCEEDS ablation
What is the impact of the long term temperature changes?
Climate change
- Interglacial: negative glacial budget as ablation EXCEEDS accumulation
- Glacial: positive glacial budget as accumulation EXCEEDS ablation
What are long term changes that will effect the glacial budget?
- Global warming
- Glacial and interglacial periods
What is the Glacial Budget?
The glacial budget is the balance between accumulation and ablation in a glacier. It determines whether the glacier will advance or retreat
What is a Corrie glacier?
- It is the smallest type of glacier
- Rotational slip causes the ice to retreat from the back wall, creating a crevasse (which forms a corrie)
- E.G. Jasper National Park
What is a Valley glacier?
- A moving mass of ice confined within a valley
- Broad V shape
- Steeped wall (U-shaped Valley)
- E.G. Tongos National Forest: Alaska
What is an example of an Ice Cap and an Ice Sheet?
- Vamajokuu (Iceland)
- Senrial Rang (Antartica)
What is abrasion?
- A process of erosion in which rocks carried in the bottom of the ice wear away the surface rock over which the ice passes
- Leaving behind striations (the depth of these depend on the resistance of the bedrock in comparison to the debris that are eroding the bedrock
When are the rates of abrasion the greatest?
-Large amount of debris
-Thick ice (greater pressure)
-Rock debris are most resistant than the bedrock it is eroding
-Glacier travelling at a greater velocity
-Meltwater creates faster basal sliding with means the glacier has greater eroding power
(However if there is excess under pressure this reduces the contact between the contact between debris and bedrock which actually reduces abrasion
What is plucking?
A process of erosion in which blocks of rock are torn away from the bed rock as the ice moves away
When are the rates of plucking the greatest?
- The bedrock is well jointed (rocks that interlock together)
- Large amounts of meltwater, more re-freezing can take place
- Thick ice (greater frictional drag)
Describe freeze-thaw weathering
- Water enters the joint or crack in the rock
- Temperatures reach below 0 degrees and the water freezes and expands. This exerts pressure on the rock prising the joints apart
- Temperatures reach above 0 degrees in the daytime causing the ice to melt
- This process is repeated, weakening the rock and eventually causing it to break apart
- This can from basal debris used in abrasion
- Also helps to ‘prepare’ the rock for erosional processes by loosening and fracturing the rock providing weaknesses that can be exploited through processes such as plucking
What is physical subglacial meltwater erosion?
- Meltwater carries sediment under pressure, eroding the underlying bedrock
- If the sediment is more large and coarse the bedrock will be eroded faster and more effectively
What is chemical subglacial meltwater erosion?
- Meltwater is made up of different chemicals (nature of the minerals found in the sediment that it transports)
- These chemicals may react with the bedrock, dissolving the bedrock through an erosional process called ‘solution’
- An example could be the acidic meltwater, dissolves the bedrock since it is made out of chalk/limestone
Describe the formation of a corrie
- Snow collects on a hollow on a mountainside and subsequent snowfall leads to compaction and the formation of a corrie glacier
- Moraine is added to the top of the corrie glacier by freeze-thaw weathering on the mountainside, this falls through the crevasses
- As the glacier moves further downslope, it tears away rock from the back wall, through plucking, steepening the back wall
- Rock fragments from plucking, as well as that from freeze-thaw weathering are lodged at the bottom of the glacier, enhancing the glacier’s abrasive power. Through abrasion, which is the sandpapering effect of the ice as it moves away, the base of the corrie is overdepeened
- Glacial ice is less thick at the snout of the glacier and so the erosional power is smaller here. Rotational slip gouges out the overdeepend hollow leaving behind the typical ‘armchair’ shape of a corrie. A rock lip is also formed as a result
- During an interglacial period the ice melts leaving behind a tarn