glaciers

     

A glacier is a large, slow-moving river of ice, forme from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity. The processes and landforms caused by glaciers and related to them are glacial (adjective); this term should not be confounded with glacial (noun), a cold period in ice ages (see glacial period). The process of glacier growth and establishment is called glaciation.

Trivia about glaciers

  • Geologists believe the basins of the Great Lakes were scooped out by these about 20,000 years ago
  • Drumlins are elongated, elliptical hills formed at the edges of these moving ice masses
  • From the old French for "ice", these cover about 1/8 of Iceland; some are 3/4 of a mile thick
  • Erosion from these created fjords & drumlins
  • Explorers enjoy cave systems inside these ice masses because they constantly change
  • In the Pleistocene epoch, these gouged at gorges in river valleys; when they melted, rocks & soil were left
  • A branch of geology studies these ice masses, which formed the Svealand area where we're taping "Jeopardy!"
  • The Pleistocene Epoch was the last time about 1/3 of the Earth's land surface was covered by these
  • Till is the clay, sand, pebbles & rocky debris carried along by the movement of one of these solid objects
  • A Montana park is named for these formations you'll also find in Washington's Olympic & North Cascades Parks
  • Weather records are preserved in these, such as Mendenhall; a drill can pull out 160,000 years of data
  • Studying these in the Swiss Alps, Louis Agassiz postulated the Earth was once covered by them
  • 1-word name for the large masses that contain the majority of the world's fresh water
  • In the 1830s Louis Agassiz proved that these moved, bringing with them the rocks & boulders that covered Europe
  • There are about 25 of these in the Montana national park named for them
  • These large masses of slow-moving ice occur where winter snowfall exceeds summer melt

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