Glaciers and Erosion
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29 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 arete | sharp jagged ridge formed between cirques |
| basal slip | movement of glacoer caused by the melting of ice in contact with the ground |
| cirque | bowl-shaped depression produced by a valley glacier |
| continental ice sheet | mass of ice that covers large land areas |
| crevasse | large crack that forms on the the surface of a glacier |
| drumlin | long low tear-shaped mound of till |
| erratic | large boulder transported and deposited by a glacier |
| esker | long winding ridge of gravel and coarse sand deposited by a glacier |
| firn | grainy ice in a glacier that has been parially melted and refrozen |
| glacial drift | sediments depoised by a glacier |
| glacier | mass of moving ice |
| ground moraine | unsorted material left beneath a glacier when the ice melts |
| hanging valley | small abandoned glaical valley suspended on a mountain above the main glacial valley |
| horn | sharp pyramid like peak formed where several aretes joined |
| ice age | long period of climatic cooling during which ice sheets cover largearea of Earth's surface |
| internal plastic flow | slow movement of a glacier in which ice crystals slip over each other |
| kettle | depression in a glacial outwash plain |
| laternal moraine | unsorted material depoisited along the sides of a valley glacier |
| medial moraine | ridge of unsorted glaicer material along the center of a valley glacier |
| meltwater | melted ice flowing from a glacier |
| Milankovitch theory | theory that small regular changes in the Earths orbit and in the tilt of the Earths axis caused the ice ages |
| outwash plain | deposit of stratified drift in front of a glacier |
| roche moutonnee | round of knobbed rock produced by glacial erosion |
| snowfield | alomst motionless mass of permanent snow and ice |
| snowline | elevation above which ice and snow remain throughout the year |
| stratiefied drift | glacier deposit that has been sorted and layered by action of streams and meltwater |
| terminal moraine | till depoised at the leading edge of a melting glacier |
| till | unsorted rock material melted by a glacier |
| valley glacier | long narrow wedge shaped mass of ice that usually moves through a mountian va |
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