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A cross-section through a glacier. The base of the glacier is more transparent as a result of melting. Glaciers may also move by basal sliding, where the base of the glacier is lubricated by the presence of liquid water, reducing basal shear stress and allowing the glacier to slide over the terrain on which it sits.
Glacier morphology, or the form a glacier takes, is influenced by temperature, precipitation, topography, and other factors. [1] The goal of glacial morphology is to ...
Glacier motion occurs from four processes, all driven by gravity: basal sliding, glacial quakes generating fractional movements of large sections of ice, bed deformation, and internal deformation. In the case of basal sliding, the entire glacier slides over its bed.
Apart from the landforms left behind by glaciers, glaciers themselves are striking features of the terrain, particularly in the polar regions of Earth. Notable examples include valley glaciers where glacial flow is restricted by the valley walls, crevasses in the upper section of glacial ice, and icefalls—the ice equivalent of waterfalls.
Moulins are parts of the internal structure of glaciers, that carry meltwater from the surface down to wherever it may go. [7] Water from a moulin often exits the glacier at base level, sometimes into the sea, and occasionally the lower end of a moulin may be exposed in the face of a glacier or at the edge of a stagnant block of ice.
Part of the glacier where snow builds up and turns to ice moves outward from there. The glacier head is the highest upslope edge of an alpine glacier or the upslope end of the zone of accumulation. The head of the glacier comes up against a steep bedrock cliff called a cirque headwall [2] Cross section of a cirque glacier showing the bergschrund
The glaciers of Venezuela are located in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Mérida. In 1910, maps made by the explorer Alfredo Jahn showed the Sierra Nevada glaciers covering about 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres). An ice trade at that time saw ice men or hieleros transporting glacier ice by mule or on foot to Mérida for sale, a six hour ...
Glacial striations are usually multiple, straight, and parallel, representing the movement of the glacier using rock fragments and sand grains, embedded in the base of the glacier, as cutting tools. Large amounts of coarse gravel and boulders carried along underneath the glacier provide the abrasive power to cut trough-like glacial grooves.