Glacier Vocabulary

Question 1

Cracks in glaciers.

Answer 1

crevasses

Question 2

The most common type of glacier; flows like rivers in high mountain areas.

Answer 2

alpine glacier or valley glacier

Question 3

Gigantic glaciers. The only two current ones are Antarctica and Greenland.

Answer 3

Ice sheets (continental ice sheets)

Question 4

Glaciers occupying broad lowlands at the base of mountains.

Answer 4

piedmont glaciers

Question 5

Part of a glacier where more snow falls each winter than melts in the summer; the top end of the glacier.

Answer 5

zone of accumulation

Question 6

Part of a glacier where less snow falls each winter than melts in the summer; the bottom end of the glacier.

Answer 6

zone of wastage

Question 7

Loss of ice and snow in a glacier.

Answer 7

ablation

Question 8

Ice breaking off of a glacier (in the water, this forms icebergs)

Answer 8

calving

Question 9

A glacier flowing over fractured bedrock, loosening and lifting rock, incorporating it into the ice.

Answer 9

plucking

Question 10

A flowing glacier acting like sandpaper.

Answer 10

abrasion

Question 11

Pulverized rock produced by glacial abrasion.

Answer 11

rock flour

Question 12

Long scratches or grooves caused by glaciers dragging rocks over bedrock.

Answer 12

glacial striation

Question 13

When glacial erosion in the main valley is greater than in a tributary, the tributary can enter the main valley well above the main valley floor. The tributary is then called a . . .

Answer 13

hanging valley

Question 14

A bowl-shaped depression at the top of a glacial valley, with steep walls on three sides.

Answer 14

cirque

Question 15

A small lake in a cirque after a glacier has melted away.

Answer 15

tarn

Question 16

Sinuous, sharp-edged ridges between two glacial flows.

Answer 16

arêtes

Question 17

Sharp, pyramid-like peaks created by several cirques around a single high mountain.

Answer 17

horn (like the Matterhorn in the Swiss alps)

Question 18

A glacial valley submerged by the ocean.

Answer 18

Fiord

Question 19

The general term for sediments of glacial origin.

Answer 19

glacial drift

Question 20

Sediment deposited as glacial ice melts and drops its load. (Not sorted by size.)

Answer 20

till

Question 21

Sediment deposited by glacial melt-water. (Sorted by size.)

Answer 21

stratified drift

Question 22

A ridge of till left by a glacier.

Answer 22

moraine

Question 23

Ridges of till along the sides of a glacial valley.

Answer 23

lateral moraines

Question 24

A single stripe of debris deposited away from the valley wall after two valley glaciers coalesce, combining the debris at their edges.

Answer 24

medial moraine

Question 25

A ridge of till left at the terminus of a glacier

Answer 25

end moraine

Question 26

A broad expanse of till left along the terminal edge of a receding glacier.

Answer 26

ground moraine

Question 27

A pit in glacial sediment left by the melting of stagnant ice which was buried in the drift.

Answer 27

kettle

Question 28

Streamlined asymmetrical hills composed of till.

Answer 28

drumlins

Question 29

Sinuous ridges of sand and gravel in once-glaciated areas created by streams flowing in tunnels below the ice.

Answer 29

esker

Question 30

Steep-sided hills of sand and gravel left after glacial retreat when a stream washed sediment into openings and depressions in the stagnant wasting terminaus of a glacier.

Answer 30

kames