| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Mountain glaciers | accumulated snow at colder HIGHER elevations, snow turns to ice and flows to lower elevations where it melts |
| Firn | dense, rounded snow that survived to the next winter |
| Alpine glacier | ice mass that accumulates at higher altitudes (in Mountians) |
| Antarctic Ice Sheet | 1.5 times the size of the US - 13 million km2 - covers entire mountian ranges and lakes |
| Basal slip | glacier moves as a coherent unit on a film of water |
| plastic flow | center flows faster than sides - center layer moves faster than deeper |
| Crevasses | cracks in the brittle upper 40m of glacial ice |
| ice fall | region of crevasses and ice pinnacles (where blocks shear off) |
| zone of accumulation | higher end covered by snow year-round |
| zone of ablation | lower end melting parts in summer |
| equilibrium line altitude | *ELA* snow line - the demarcaion between permanent and seasonal snow |
| terminus | botton end (toe) of a glacier |
| iceberg | bits of glacier that break off into the sea |
| U-shaped valley | ice scours out a rounded profile |
| Cirque | steep horseshoe cliff at head of U-shaped valley |
| Tarn | small lake in glacial eroded depression |
| paternoster lake | string of connected glacial lakes |
| Horn | sleep rock spire where 3 or more criques meet |
| Arete | steep ridge in between two U-shaped valleys |
| Hanging valley | small glacial valley that meets main valley with large verticel offset from main valley |
| Fjord | glacial valley close to sea, later flooded by rising sea level |
| drift | termused for all rock or sediment transported and deposited by a glacer |
| till | material deposited directly by the glacial ice |
| statified drift | material carried first by the glacier and then by wind - water |
Combine with other sets
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