Name ___________________________
Date ____________
ES per_____
Mr. Landsman
Glacier Erosion Notes
Erosion: the ________________________ of weathered material.
Glacier: A large mass of ice and snow that exists year-round and moves under the
influence of ________________________.
Evidence for Glacier Erosion….Erosion by Ice
1. _________________________________: A large rock (boulder) that is a different
rock type from the local bedrock….a glacier dropped it there.
2. _________________________________: Different sized rocks all mixed together,
unsorted. Example: ________________________________
3. _________________________________: Chatter marks or parallel GROOVES in the
bedrock. The scratched show the direction of ice movement.
Caused by…
________________________________________________________________________
4. _________________________________: Smooth polished bedrock surfaces.
How Glaciers Form
1. COLD summers – the winter snow does not melt, it just piles deeper and deeper
2. May be located at HIGH _____________________(above snow line)
or HIGH _____________________ (near polar regions)
Buried snow gets compacted to form ___________ and eventually becomes GLACIER
ICE.
Two major types of glaciers:
1. _________________________________________: a glacier high in the mountains
that fills in the valleys and flows downhill. The ice scrapes away at the
________________of the mountains and ____________________the peaks.
Type 1: VALLEY GLACIERS
Before
During
After
Valley/Alpine Glacier Landscapes
1. Cirques – semi-circular basins (bowls) found at the top of the glacier valley.
2. Arete – a steep SHARPENED peak between parallel glacier valleys
3. Tarn – a lake within a cirque
4. Horn – a pyramid-shaped sharp high peak formed where several glaciers begin
5. Hanging Valley – a vertical wall formed where a tributary glacier joined a larger
glacier. This will often be the site of a waterfall.
6. U-shaped Valley – alpine glaciers convert former V-shaped stream valleys into Ushaped troughs
Moraines: Piles of TILL that are deposited directly by glacier ice.
Moraines are composed of mixed sizes of rock and the sediment is not layered.
TILL is ________________________________ and ___________________________.
Summary Mad-libs: Valley Glaciers
Glaciers are large masses of _________ that move due to the pull of_________________.
(a force that pulls down on EVERYTHING)
(noun, frozen water stuff)
Glaciers leave behind evidence in the rocks and in the _______________________.
(a student called me this once…ONCE)
Bedrock marked by a glacier may have _______________________
or
(vocab for parallel scratches)
__________________, or be smoothly _________________________.
(…like in a toilet)
(adjective, NOT a person formerly from Poland)
Alpine or ____________ glaciers leave behind features in the landscape. The peaks are
__________________ and the valleys have a ______________________-shape.
(a letter in the English alphabet, just after “T”)
(adjective)
Long piles of till that are ____________________________ and un-stratified
(vocab for mixed particle sizes)
are called ________________________.
(many examples on the top of this page)
Type 2: Continental Glaciers
A.K.A ________________
Very old and very _____________________________ sheets of ice that cover large areas
of land and oceans.
Current Ice Sheets: _________________________ and _________________________.
Continental Glaciers flow from ____________________ toward the _________________.
Cool Fact – when ice sheets are melting at their southern edge, big pieces of ice fall off
into the ocean. This is called “Calving”.
ICE AGES: Historically, cold periods on the Earth have resulted in ICE AGES.
Ice sheets advance from the north because the snow DOES NOT MELT in summer.
The ice flows south, and was even RIGHT HERE in NYS.
Ice sheets _________________________ during ice ages and ______________________
during inter-glacial periods (like now).
Fact 1: When glaciers FLOW faster than they MELT, the ice front ADVANCES.
Fact 2: When glaciers MELT faster than they FLOW, the ice front RECEDES.
________________________________________________________________________
Write a “math sentence” to express facts 1 and 2
Long Island and Cape Cod have ______________________ that were left behind by the
retreating ice at the end of the recent ice ages.
Continental Glacier Features and Deposits:
A: Ice Front: the front of the ice
B: Drumlin: A long inverted-canoe-shaped hill of till, usually found in groups, that point
in the direction of ice flow.
C. Kettle Lake: a lake formed by a buried block of calved ice that has melted and
created a depression
D. Esker: a long strip of sediment that is deposited by rivers of melt-water running out
the ice front.
E. Kame: a cone-shaped pile of SORTED, STRATIFIED sediment deposited by rivers of
meltwater running along the TOP of the glacier and plunging down the ice front onto the
ground.
F: Outwash/Outwash Plain: a region BEYOND the farthest extent of the ice front
composed of SORTED and STRATIFIED sediment deposited by MELTWATER.
G. Terminal Moraine: a long pile of till deposited at the farthest extent of the ice front.
Summary Mad-libs: Continental Glaciers
Continental glaciers, also known as _________ ___________ form in polar regions and
advance during __________ _____________ and retreat during ____________ periods.
Continental glaciers flow from the _________________ where it is mad cold. Glaciers
ADVANCE when the ice is ____________________ faster than it is ________________.
Glaciers RETREAT when ________________ is faster than the ice is _______________.
Continental GLACIER ICE leaves behind UNSORTED TILL that forms features such as
____________________, and ______________________.
Continental glacier MELTWATER forms deposits such as ______________________,
_______________, and a flat region of sorted deposits called an ________________ plain.
The Venn-Diagram of Glaciers
Name ___________________________