Lab 7 : Glaciers, Erosion, and Deposition Key Q : How can glaciers create & change landforms?
Lab 7: Glaciers, Erosion, and Deposition
Key Q: How can glaciers create & change landforms?
Glaciers
What is a Glacier?Glaciers are made up of fallen snow that, over many years,
compresses into large, thickened ice masses.
Due to the ice’s mass and the force of gravity glaciers flow like
very slow rivers.
How do Glaciers affect the land?
Glaciers transport material as they move.
They sculpt and carve away the land beneath them.
The ice erodes the land surface and carries the broken rocks and sediment far from their original
places.
Moraines rock and sediment a glacier
picks up or pushes as it moves (like a plow)
Terminusthe front of the glacier
If the front of the glacier moves forward faster then it melts.
Glaciers advance if there is more ice accumulating then melting
Glaciers can advance
If the front of the glacier moves slower than it melts
Glaciers retreat if there is more ice melting than
accumulating
Glaciers can retreat
If the glacier stays in the same place
Amount of ice accumulating
and melting are equal
Glaciers can “standstill”
1. How is fluffy snow transformed into glacier ice?
2. Why is “river of ice” a good name for a valley glacier?
3. Explain how glaciers form both erosional & depositional landforms.
4. In which part of the Earth System would you put glaciers? Why?
5. How do glaciers affect the geosphere?
6. Explain how changes in the atmosphere can affect glaciers.
7. What is a moraine?
8. What is a terminus?
9. Explain how glaciers can advance, retreat or standstill.
10. What force causes glaciers to flow?
11. Make Earth System Connections