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chapterseventeen
glaciers
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| glacier | a large mass of moving ice formed from compacted snow |
| snowfield | a mass of permanent snow and ice |
| snowline | the elevation above which snow and ice remain throughout the year |
| firn | grainy ice created by partial melting and refreezing of snow |
| alpine glacier | a narrow, wedge-shaped mass of ice that forms in a mountainous region and confined to a small area by the surrounding topography; also calley a valley glacier |
| continental glacier | massive sheets of ice not confined to local topography |
| basal slip | the process that lubricates the glacier's base and causes the glacier to slip forward |
| internal plastic flow | process where pressure deforms grains of ice under a glacier, causing the grains to flow over each other |
| crevasse | large cracks on the glacier's surface, sometimes as deep as 50 meters |
| ice shelf | part of the ice sheet that moves out over the ocean |
| icebergs | large blocks of ice that break off from the ice shelf and ddrift into the ocean |
| cirque | bowl-shaped depression forms by the glacier pulling blocks of rock from the valley floor |
| arete | a sharp jagged ridge which forms between two cirgues |
| horn | where several aretes join to form a sharp pyramid-like peak |
| rouches mountonnees | a knob or hill that has a rounded side facing the direction the glacier came from, and a is jagged on the side the glacier was going; means "sheep rocks" in French |
| U-shaped valley | the shape of the valley a glacier creates as it rounds off the edges of a V-shaped river valley |
| hanging valley | a tributary valley suspended high above the main valley |
| erratic | large rocks that a glacier transports from a distant source |
| till | unsorted (big and little mixed)rock material deposited directly by the glacier |
| stratified drift | material that has been sorted (big and little separated) and deposited in layers by streams flowing from the glacier's meltwaters |
| moraine | ridges of unsorted sediment deposited by a glacier |
| drumlin | long,low tear-shaped mounds of till |
| outwash plain | deposit of stratified drift that lies in front of a terminal moraine and is crossed by many meltwater streams |
| kettle | bowl-like deposit formed when a chunk of glacial ice is buried, then melts |
| esker | long, winding ridge of gravel and course sand deposited by glacial meltwater streams |
| ice age | long period of climatic cooling during which the continents are glaciated repeatedly |
| interglacial period | period of warmer climate characterized by the retreat of the glaciers |
| Milankovitch theory | theory that cyclical changes in Earth's orbit and the tilt of Earth's axis occur over thousands of years and cause climate changes |
Created by:
sisteele
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