- Entertainment & Pop Culture
- Geography & Travel
- Health & Medicine
- Lifestyles & Social Issues
- Philosophy & Religion
- Politics, Law & Government
- Sports & Recreation
- Visual Arts
- World History
- On This Day in History
- Biographies
- Top Questions
- Week In Review
- Infographics
- Demystified
- Image Galleries
- One Good Fact
- Britannica Explains In these videos, Britannica explains a variety of topics and answers frequently asked questions.
- Britannica Classics Check out these retro videos from Encyclopedia Britannica’s archives.
- #WTFact Videos In #WTFact Britannica shares some of the most bizarre facts we can find.
- This Time in History In these videos, find out what happened this month (or any month!) in history.
- Demystified Videos In Demystified, Britannica has all the answers to your burning questions.
- Student Portal Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more.
- COVID-19 Portal While this global health crisis continues to evolve, it can be useful to look to past pandemics to better understand how to respond today.
- 100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.
- Britannica Beyond We’ve created a new place where questions are at the center of learning. Go ahead. Ask. We won’t mind.
- Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century. Learn about the major environmental problems facing our planet and what can be done about them!
- SpaceNext50 Britannica presents SpaceNext50, From the race to the Moon to space stewardship, we explore a wide range of subjects that feed our curiosity about space!
- Introduction
Types of glaciers
Glacial erosion.
- Glacial deposition
- Rock polish
- P-forms and glacial grooves
- Cirques, tarns, U-shaped valleys, arêtes, and horns
- Hanging valleys
- Paternoster lakes
- Roches moutonnées
- Rock drumlins
- Erosional landforms of continental glaciers
- Depositional landforms of continental glaciers
- Glaciofluvial deposits
- Glaciolacustrine deposits
- Felsenmeers, talus, and rock glaciers
- Permafrost, patterned ground, solifluction deposits, and pingos
- Related Content
- Additional Reading
- Contributors
- Article History
glacial landform
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
- BBC - Bitesize - Glacial landforms
- Table Of Contents
Recent News
glacial landform , any product of flowing ice and meltwater. Such landforms are being produced today in glaciated areas , such as Greenland, Antarctica , and many of the world’s higher mountain ranges. In addition, large expansions of present-day glaciers have recurred during the course of Earth history. At the maximum of the last ice age , which ended about 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, more than 30 percent of the Earth’s land surface was covered by ice. Consequently, if they have not been obliterated by other landscape-modifying processes since that time, glacial landforms may still exist in regions that were once glaciated but are now devoid of glaciers.
Periglacial features, which form independently of glaciers, are nonetheless a product of the same cold climate that favours the development of glaciers, and so are treated here as well.
General considerations
Before describing the different landforms produced by glaciers and their meltwater, the glacial environment and the processes responsible for the formation of such landforms is briefly discussed.
There are numerous types of glaciers, but it is sufficient here to focus on two broad classes: mountain , or valley , glaciers and continental glaciers, or ice sheets , (including ice caps). For information about other types, see the articles ice and glacier .
Generally, ice sheets are larger than valley glaciers. The main difference between the two classes, however, is their relationship to the underlying topography . Valley glaciers are rivers of ice usually found in mountainous regions, and their flow patterns are controlled by the high relief in those areas. In map view, many large valley glacier systems, which have numerous tributary glaciers that join to form a large “trunk glacier,” resemble the roots of a plant. Pancakelike ice sheets, on the other hand, are continuous over extensive areas and completely bury the underlying landscape beneath hundreds or thousands of metres of ice. Within continental ice sheets, the flow is directed more or less from the centre outward. At the periphery , however, where ice sheets are much thinner, they may be controlled by any substantial relief existing in the area. In this case, their borders may be lobate on a scale of a few kilometres, with tonguelike protrusions called outlet glaciers . Viewed by themselves, these are nearly indistinguishable from the lower reaches of a large valley glacier system. Consequently, many of the landforms produced by valley glaciers and continental ice sheets are similar or virtually identical, though they often differ in magnitude. Nonetheless, each type of glacier produces characteristic features and thus warrants separate discussion.
Two processes, internal deformation and basal sliding, are responsible for the movement of glaciers under the influence of gravity (see glacier ). The temperature of glacier ice is a critical condition that affects these processes. For this reason, glaciers are classified into two main types, temperate and polar, according to their temperature regime. Temperate glaciers are also called isothermal glaciers, because they exist at the pressure-melting point (the melting temperature of ice at a given pressure) throughout their mass. The ice in polar, or cold glaciers , in contrast, is below the pressure-melting point. Some glaciers have an intermediate thermal character. For example, subpolar glaciers are temperate in their interior parts, but their margins are cold-based. This classification is a broad generalization, however, because the thermal condition of a glacier may show wide variations in both space and time.
Internal deformation, or strain , in glacier ice is a response to shear stresses arising from the weight of the ice (ice thickness) and the degree of slope of the glacier surface. Internal deformation occurs by movement within and between individual ice crystals (slow creep) and by brittle failure (fracture), which arises when the mass of ice cannot adjust its shape rapidly enough by the creep process to take up the stresses affecting it. The relative importance of these two processes is greatly influenced by the temperature of the ice. Thus, fractures due to brittle failure under tension, known as crevasses, are usually much deeper in polar ice than they are in temperate ice.
The temperature of the basal ice is an important influence upon a glacier’s ability to erode its bed. When basal temperatures are below the pressure-melting point, the ability of the ice mass to slide on the bed ( basal sliding) is inhibited by the adhesion of the basal ice to the frozen bed beneath. Basal sliding is also diminished by the greater rigidity of polar ice: this reduces the rate of creep, which, in turn, reduces the ability of the more rigid ice to deform around obstacles on the glacier bed. Thus, the flow of cold-based glaciers is predominantly controlled by internal deformation, with proportionately low rates of basal sliding. For this reason, rates of abrasion are commonly low beneath polar glaciers, and slow rates of erosion commonly result. Equally, the volume of meltwater is frequently very low, so that the extent of sediments and landforms derived from polar glaciers is limited.
Temperate glaciers, being at the pressure-meeting point, move by both mechanisms, with basal sliding being the more important. It is this sliding that enables temperate glaciers to erode their beds and carve landforms so effectively. Ice is, however, much softer and has a much lower shear strength than most rocks, and pure ice alone is not capable of substantially eroding anything other than unconsolidated sediments. Most temperate glaciers have a basal debris zone from several centimetres to a few metres thick that contains varying amounts of rock debris in transit. In this respect, glaciers act rather like sheets of sandpaper; while the paper itself is too soft to sand wood, the adherent hard grains make it a powerful abrasive system. The analogy ends here, however, for the rock debris found in glaciers is of widely varying sizes—from the finest rock particles to large boulders—and also generally of varied types as it includes the different rocks that a glacier is overriding. For this reason, a glacially abraded surface usually bears many different “tool-marks,” from microscopic scratches to gouges centimetres deep and tens of metres long. Over thousands of years glaciers may erode their substrate to a depth of several tens of metres by this mechanism, producing a variety of streamlined landforms typical of glaciated landscapes.
Several other processes of glacial erosion are generally included under the terms glacial plucking or quarrying. This process involves the removal of larger pieces of rock from the glacier bed. Various explanations for this phenomenon have been proposed. Some of the mechanisms suggested are based on differential stresses in the rock caused by ice being forced to flow around bedrock obstacles. High stress gradients are particularly important, and the resultant tensile stresses can pull the rock apart along pre-existing joints or crack systems. These pressures have been shown to be sufficient to fracture solid rock, thus making it available for removal by the ice flowing above it. Other possibilities include the forcing apart of rock by the pressure of crystallization produced beneath the glacier as water derived from the ice refreezes (regelation) or because of temperature fluctuations in cavities under the glacier. Still another possible mechanism involves hydraulic pressures of flowing water known to be present, at least temporarily, under nearly all temperate glaciers. It is hard to determine which process is dominant because access to the base of active glaciers is rarely possible. Nonetheless, investigators know that larger pieces of rock are plucked from the glacier bed and contribute to the number of abrasive “tools” available to the glacier at its base. Other sources for the rock debris in glacier ice may include rockfalls from steep slopes bordering a glacier or unconsolidated sediments overridden as a glacier advances.
- My Preferences
- My Reading List
- Study Guides
- Glacial Landforms
- The Earth's Exterior
- Geologic Time
- The Earth Today
- History of Physical Geology
- The Earth's Origin
- The Earth's Structure
- Mineral Properties
- The Rock Cycle
- Chemical Composition
- Minerals and Rocks
- Extrusive Rock Types
- Rock Textures
- Intrusive Rock Types
- Intrusive Structures
- How Different Magmas Form
- Igneous Rocks and Plate Tectonics
- Magmatic Differentiation
- Volcanoes and Lavas
- Clastic Sedimentary Rocks
- Chemical Sedimentary Rocks
- Organic Sedimentary Rocks
- Sedimentary Features
- Sedimentary Environments
- How Sedimentary Rocks Form
- Factors Controlling Metamorphism
- Types of Metamorphism
- Metamorphic Rock Types
- Hydrothermal Rocks
- Metamorphism and Plate Tectonics
- Metamorphism Defined
- Interpreting Structures
- Mapping in the Field
- Unconformities
- Geologic Structures Defined
- Tectonic Forces
- Processes of Mechanical Weathering
- Processes of Chemical Weathering
- Prevention of Mass Wasting
- Introduction to Mass Wasting
- Mass‐Wasting Controls
- Types of Mass Wasting
- Stream Dynamics
- Stream Erosion
- Sediment Load
- Stream Deposition
- Stream Valleys
- Regional Erosion
- Types of Water Flow
- How Glaciers Develop
- Glacier Movement
- Glacial Erosion
- Glacial Deposits
- Glaciers in the Past
- Introduction to Glaciation
- Types of Glaciers
- North American Glaciation
- Permeability
- The Water Table
- Streams and Springs
- Effects of Groundwater Flow
- Groundwater Pollution
- Geothermal Energy
- Groundwater and Infiltration
- Shoreline Features
- Desert Features
- The Effects of Wind
- Distribution and Causes of Deserts
- Monitoring Earthquakes
- Effects of Earthquakes
- Earthquakes and Plate Tectonics
- Control and Prediction
- How Earthquakes Form
- Seismic Waves
- Isostatic Equilibrium
- Magnetic Fields
- Geophysics Defined
- Seismic Waves: Methods of Detection
- The Structure of the Earth
- Geothermal Gradients
- Continental Margins
- Ocean Floor Sediments
- Active Continental Margins
- Passive Continental Margins
- Investigative Technologies
- Midoceanic Ridges
- Oceanic Crust
- How Plates Move
- Types of Plate Boundaries
- Why Plates Move
- Mantle Plumes
- Early Evidence for Plate Tectonics
- Paleomagnetic Evidence
- Sea Floor Evidence
- Features of Mountain Belts
- Types of Mountains
- How Mountains Form
- How Continents Form
- Introduction to Mountains
- Geologic Correlations
- Absolute Age
- A Summary of Earth's History
- Geologic Time Defined
- Relative Time
- Metallic Deposits
- Energy Resources
- Nonmetallic Resources
- Recycling and Conservation
- Resources and Reserves
- Earth's Moon
- Jupiter and Saturn
- Introduction to the Solar System
The most striking glacial erosional features are associated with alpine glaciation. In fact, rugged mountainous areas can be made even more spectacular by glacial action. Alpine glaciers transform V‐shaped valleys made by streams into deeper U‐shaped valleys called glacial troughs —the ice is too massive to follow the stream bed and pushes right through, scouring out a U shape. The ice also erodes away the ends of any ridges along the valley walls. These eroded ridges are called truncated spurs. The valleys of tributaries can also be truncated, forming hanging valleys that are higher than the main valley and often marked by waterfalls.
The mass of ice at the top of a glacial valley ultimately forms a steep‐sided, circular hollow called a cirque. Mass wasting and frost wedging also contribute to the formation of a cirque. A bergschrund is a crevasse that forms where the glacier separates from the cirque wall and is commonly filled with rock fall debris. A horn is a sharply defined peak that has formed from erosional processes along the rim of the cirque. A steep ridge called an arete commonly extends downward from a horn to separate two adjacent glacial valleys.
An advancing glacier scours out a series of depressions in the underlying bedrock, which later fill with water and become rock‐basin lakes , or tarns. Tarns are best developed in softer or highly fractured bedrock. Tarns are less common on smooth, hard bedrock surfaces because it is more difficult for the glacier to “grab hold” and break off pieces of rock.
Ice sheets, with their slower rates of movement and greater weight, tend to grind down and smooth out the irregular, or sometimes mountainous, underlying surface. Exposed bedrock is polished and striated. The rounded geologic landforms and extensive, flat, bedrock surfaces in Ontario, Canada, are good examples of how an ice sheet affects the surface.
Previous Glacial Erosion
Next Glacial Deposits
has been added to your
Reading List!
Removing #book# from your Reading List will also remove any bookmarked pages associated with this title.
Are you sure you want to remove #bookConfirmation# and any corresponding bookmarks?
- A List Of Glacial Depositional Features Or Landforms
Although glaciers cover only a small part of the Earth’s surface today and are constantly retreating due to climate change, the situation was very different in the past. Scientists believe that there were times when nearly the entire surface of the Earth was under ice and snow. The glacial erosional and depositional features visible on the surface of the Earth today serve as proof of the above fact. In this article, we will examine some of the depositional landforms created by glaciers and learn about how such landforms are formed. Most of these landforms became visible following the retreat of the glaciers that formed them.
Outwash Fan
When the braided streams of a flowing glacier deposit sediments on a flat plain, it results in the formation of an outwash fan. Usually, such landforms are produced by valley glaciers. As a glacier flows down the mountain slope, it picks up debris from the bedrock. After flowing through a valley, the glacier enters a wider and flatter plain. Here, it deposits the sediments in a fan-shaped body known as an outwash fan.
A moraine is another glacial depositional feature. It consists of accumulated rocks, dirt, and other debris that have been deposited by a glacier. The size of deposits in moraines vary from tiny particles of sand to large boulders. The deposits accumulate on the surface in an unstratified manner without any type of sorting. Moraines are commonly occurring glacial landforms and are often seen in the Himalayan and Alpine mountain regions, Greenland, etc.
A kame is another depositional landform of a glacier. It is a hill or mound that lacks a proper shape. Kames are composed of till, gravel, and sand that can be observed after the retreat of glaciers. Such a feature is usually formed when debris from a rockfall or other large volumes of debris fall through a crevasse of a glacier and accumulate in the depression. When the glacier retreats, the kame becomes visible as an elevation of land on the bedrock through which the glacier previously flowed. Kames are common in Edmonton, Alberta where they make up the Prosser Archaeological Site. The Fonthill Kame located in Ontario, Canada, is also an example of a kame area.
Kame Terrace
A kame terrace is formed when the glaciers deposit sediments on the sides of a glacial valley. Usually, meltwater streams are formed on both sides of the glacier between the glacier and the valley walls. Such streams deposit sediments along their lengths in different layers. Such deposits appear like terraces on the valley sides and are called the kame terraces. Such terraces slope downward in the direction of the flow of the glacier.
Drumlins are depositional landforms formed by a glacier. A drumlin appears in the form of an elongated hill, a shape that can be compared with that of an inverted spoon or an egg buried partly. Drumlins are formed when glaciers move across till or rock debris. They mostly occur in flat lowland areas and extend in a direction parallel to the glacial flow. The drumlins are high and steep at glacier side and tapering and smooth on the lee slope. These landforms are usually found in clusters and often impede the movement of flowing water bodies. Thus, swamps and lake are formed between these landforms. Drumlins are common in Ireland.
Glacial Erratic
Erratics, as the name suggests, is a piece of rock that is different in several respects from the rocks of the surrounding landscape. Such rocks are carried by glaciers over long distances and deposited in a land where such rocks do not occur. The size of erratics varies from pebbles to massive boulders. An example of an erratic is Big Rock in Alberta.
An esker is also a depositional landform formed by glacial action. It exists as a long narrow ridge that winds along a glacial valley or canyon. Due to their peculiar shape, these landforms are often compared to railway embankments. Eskers are usually several kilometers long. They are made up of layers of gravel and sand. Eskers are formed when glacial channels running beneath, within or above a glacier, deposit sediments along their length of flow. Eskers usually form at the terminal region of glaciers where the flow of the glacier is sluggish in nature and is loaded with sediments. The Eiscir Riada is one of the best-known examples of a system of eskers. It runs for a distance of about 200 km covering nearly the entire width of Ireland from Galway to Dublin.
- Environment
More in Environment
Meet 12 Incredible Conservation Heroes Saving Our Wildlife From Extinction
India's Leopard God, Waghoba, Aids Wildlife Conservation In The Country
India's Bishnoi Community Has Fearlessly Protected Nature For Over 500 Years
Wildfires And Habitat Loss Are Killing Jaguars In The Amazon Rainforest
In India's Sundarbans: Where People Live Face-To-Face With Wild Tigers
Africa's "Thunderbird" Is At Risk Of Extinction
Why Is Biodiversity Critical To Life On Earth?
How Is Climate Change Impacting The Water Cycle?
- IAS Preparation
- UPSC Preparation Strategy
Glaciers [UPSC Geography Notes GS1]
Glaciers are a bulk of ice moving under its weight. It is an important geographical term for students preparing for the IAS Exam or any other Government Exam.
Geography is a significant part of the General Studies Paper-1 in the UPSC Syllabus .
Students choosing their Optional Subject as Geography for UPSC Mains Exam can also find this article useful.
What is Glacier?
Glaciers are a bulk of ice moving under its weight. It forms in areas where the amassing of snow goes beyond its ablation over many years.
- They are generally seen in the snow-fields.
- This largest freshwater basin covers around 10 percent of the land surface of the Earth.
- According to the topography and the location of the glacier, it can be categorized as Mountain Glacier (Alpine Glaciers) or Continental Glacier (Ice Sheets).
- The Continental Glacier moves outward in all directions whereas the Mountain Glacier moves from a higher to a lower altitude.
Types of Glaciers
Glaciers can be distinguished in two major categories based on its type:
Glacial Landforms
Glaciers have played a prominent role in the shaping of landscapes in the mid and high latitudes of alpine environments. The major landforms made by glaciers are:
- Glacial Erosional Landforms
- Glacial Depositional Landforms
Glaciers in India
Glaciers in India relevant to UPSC can be listed as follows:
Gangotri Glacier
This is an important glacier in India.
- Largest Glacier in Uttarakhand.
- Source of the Ganges. (River Bhagirathi)
- The Gangotri glacier originates at the northern slope of Chaukhamba range of peaks in Garhwal Himalayas.
- Gangotri is not a single valley glacier, but a combination of several other glaciers.
Carbon Deposits on Gangotri
- The Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology is an Autonomous Institute administered by the Department of Science and Technology.
- They have the Chirbasa station at a height of 3,600 m and Bhojbasa station at a height of 3,800 m.
- They research the number of carbon deposits on the important glaciers of the Himalayas. Gangotri being the source of the Ganges is one of the most important Glaciers in the country.
- According to recent data from the research, the concentration of Black Carbon present on the Gangotri Glacier has doubled when compared to the results of the past few years.
- The primary reason for this is the agricultural burning and forest fires in the nearby regions.
Students can note this point as an important prelims fact for the UPSC Prelims under the segment UPSC Environment and Ecology.
Glaciers UPSC Geography Notes:- Download PDF Here
FAQ about Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Glof
Why is the danger of glacial lake outbursts increasing every year, what are some of the potential consequences of a glacial lake outburst flood, leave a comment cancel reply.
Your Mobile number and Email id will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Request OTP on Voice Call
Post Comment
- Share Share
Register with BYJU'S & Download Free PDFs
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Glaciers form on land, and they are made up of fallen snow that gets compressed into ice over many centuries. They move slowly downward from the pull of gravity. Most of the world’s glaciers exist in the polar regions, in areas like Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, and Antarctica.
glacial landform, any product of flowing ice and meltwater. Such landforms are being produced today in glaciated areas, such as Greenland, Antarctica, and many of the world’s higher mountain ranges. In addition, large expansions of present-day glaciers have recurred during the course of Earth history. At the maximum of the last ice age, which ended about 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, more than ...
Glaciers are moving bodies of ice that can change entire landscapes. They sculpt mountains, carve valleys, and move vast quantities of rock and sediment. In the past, glaciers have covered more than one third of Earth's surface, and they continue to flow and to shape features in many places.
Glacial Landforms Glacial Landforms The most striking glacial erosional features are associated with alpine glaciation. In fact, rugged mountainous areas can be made even more spectacular by glacial action.
Glacial landform, any product of flowing ice and meltwater. Such landforms are being produced today in glaciated areas, such as Greenland, Antarctica, and many of the world's higher mountain ranges. In addition, large expansions of present-day glaciers have recurred during the course of Earth history.
Some areas, like Fennoscandia and the southern Andes, have extensive occurrences of glacial landforms; other areas, such as the Sahara, display rare and very old fossil glacial landforms. Contents 1 Erosional landforms 2 Depositional landforms 3 Glacial lakes and ponds 4 Ice features 5 Disputed origin 6 See also 7 References 8 External links
Guided Notes on Glaciers, Section 8.3 1. A glacier is a large, moving mass of ice. 2. Glaciers form near Earth’s poles and in mountainous areas at high elevations. 3. Glaciers currently cover only about 10 percent of Earth’s surface. 4. Cold temperatures keep fallen snow from completely melting, and each year, the
Drumlins are depositional landforms formed by a glacier. A drumlin appears in the form of an elongated hill, a shape that can be compared with that of an inverted spoon or an egg buried partly. Drumlins are formed when glaciers move across till or rock debris.
Glaciers can be distinguished in two major categories based on its type: Glacial Landforms Glaciers have played a prominent role in the shaping of landscapes in the mid and high latitudes of alpine environments. The major landforms made by glaciers are: Glacial Erosional Landforms Glacial Depositional Landforms Glaciers in India