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glaciers Flashcards

(74 cards)

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1
Q

What are Icehouse conditions?

A

Very cold glacial conditions

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2
Q

What are Greenhouse conditions?

A

Warmer interglacial conditions

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3
Q

What is the Pleistocene?

A

Period of time from about 2 million years ago to 11,700 years ago. During this period areas of land at higher and middle latitudes were covered with glacial ice.

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4
Q

What is the Milankovitch cycle?

A

A theory that suggests that changes in the Earth’s climate are caused by variations in solar radiation received at the Earth’s surface. These variations are due to cyclical changes in the geometric relationship between the Earth and the Sun.

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5
Q

What are the three parts of the Milankovitch cycle?

A

Orbit eccentricity, axial tilt, and Earth wobble.

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6
Q

What is the Anthropocene?

A

The current geological age, the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

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7
Q

How old is the Earth?

A

4.6 billion years

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8
Q

What is eccentricity in relation to the Earth’s orbit?

A

The change of the Earth’s orbit from circular to elliptical.

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9
Q

What is precession?

A

The wobble of the earth.

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10
Q

What is obliquity?

A

Tilt of the earth varies between 22.2 and 24.5 degrees; the greater the tilt, the more solar energy the Earth receives.

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11
Q

What causes short-term fluctuations of temperature?

A

Solar spots and volcanoes.

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12
Q

What are solar spots?

A

Dark spots on the Sun’s surface caused by intense magnetic storms.

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13
Q

What is glacial distribution?

A

Greater snow cover in high altitudes and greater values of latitude.

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14
Q

What is an ice sheet?

A

Complete submergence of regional topography; forms a gently sloping dome of ice several kilometres thick in the centre.

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15
Q

What is an ice cap?

A

Smaller version of ice sheet occupying upland areas; outlet glaciers and ice sheets drain both ice sheets and ice caps.

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16
Q

What is an ice field?

A

Ice covering an upland area, but not thick enough to bury topography; many do not extend beyond highland source.

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17
Q

What is a valley glacier?

A

Glacier confined between valley walls and terminating in a narrow tongue; forms from ice caps/sheets or cirques; may terminate in sea as a tidewater glacier.

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18
Q

What is a piedmont glacier?

A

Valley glacier which extends beyond the end of a mountain valley into a flatter area and spreads out like a fan.

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19
Q

What is a cirque glacier?

A

Smaller glacier occupying a hollow on the mountain side- carves out a corrie or cirque; smaller version is known as a niche glacier.

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20
Q

What is an ice shelf?

A

Large area of floating glacier ice extending from the coast where several glaciers have reached the sea and coalesce.

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21
Q

What was the Loch Lomond Stadial (Younger Dryas)?

A

A period of time (12.9k yrs ago - 11.7k yrs ago) where global average temperatures decreased by 7 degrees, causing glacial advancement which reached as far as the Lake District and North Wales.

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22
Q

What was the Little Ice Age?

A

A period of time (1550-1750) where global temperatures decreased, causing glacial re-advancement in Europe, spread of arctic sea ice (reaching Iceland).

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23
Q

What is a glacier?

A

Flowing sheet/river of ice.

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24
Q

What is a tarn?

A

A type of glacial lake where water fills a corrie.

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25
What is a corrie?
Hollow in mountain-side, arm-chair shaped landform.
26
What are arêtes?
Steep ridges between corries.
27
What are truncated spurs?
Where interlocking spurs have been chopped off by the glacier.
28
What is a U-shaped valley?
A hanging valley where tributaries must drop down into the glaciated valley floor, produced by erosion and the chopping of mountains due to glaciation.
29
What is a talik?
Unfrozen ground.
30
What is a pingo?
Ice core mounds, very large (30m-70m high), can be conical or elongated.
31
What is patterned ground?
A range of geometric landforms including circles, nets, polygons and steps, caused by frost-action.
32
What are ice wedge polygons?
Frost cracking creates areas of irregular polygons, where the active layer thaws, water flows down into the cracks and subsequently freezes building up a wedge.
33
What are tors?
Where more resistant areas of rock are left; uneroded stacks of smooth rock.
34
What are scree/talus slopes?
The loose debris on the face of a mountain, a product of rock fall, debris flow and avalanches.
35
What is a rock glacier?
A glacier covered by a layer of scree/talus or a mass of rock and debris mixed with ice.
36
What is a blockfield/felsenmeer?
A surface covered by boulders, rocks and debris; formed by frost weathering below the surface.
37
What is discharge?
Amount of water flowing downstream, measured in Cumecs.
38
What are marginal crevasses?
Found at the sides of a glacier, caused by differences in the rate of flow.
39
What are transverse crevasses?
Cut across glacier, perpendicular to the direction of flow.
40
What are radial crevasses?
Found at the Piedmont where cracks radiate from the centre of the glacial spread.
41
What is soft-bed subglacial deformation?
When a bed of rock is unconsolidated and the sediment itself deforms and moves along with all ice above it.
42
What is lithology?
Type and properties of an area's rock.
43
What are stadials?
Short-term changes to conditions that lead to ice re-advances.
44
What are interstadials?
Short-term changes to conditions that lead to ice.
45
What is thermohaline circulation?
The ocean consists almost entirely of water and salt. The density of water depends on its temperature and salinity.
46
What is ablation?
Surface removal of ice or snow from a glacier or snowfield by melting, sublimation, and/or calving.
47
What is a cirque?
Landform created by glaciers, grinding an existing valley into a rounded shape with steep sides.
48
What is an ice field?
Large level area of glacial ice found covering a large expanse of land.
49
What is the cryosphere?
The frozen water part of the Earth system.
50
What is the lithosphere?
The rigid outer part of the Earth system, consisting of the crust and upper mantle.
51
What is the biosphere?
The regions of the surface and atmosphere of the Earth occupied by living organisms.
52
What is the hydrosphere?
The part of the Earth system consisting of water, such as lakes, seas, oceans and clouds.
53
What is the atmosphere?
The part of the Earth system consisting of air and anything above the surface.
54
What is solifluction?
Form of mass movement in environments that experience freeze-thaw action.
55
What is nivation?
Process where snow patches initiate erosion through physical weathering, melt-water flow and gelifluction.
56
What is the permafrost active layer?
The top level of soil of permafrost that thaws and freezes during summer and winter.
57
What is orbital/astronomica+l forcing?
A process which can change the amount of energy from the sun reaching the Earth and forces climate to change as a response.
58
What is albedo?
The amount of light or radiation that is reflected by a surface such as ice.
59
What is calving?
The breaking up of the ice sheet at the glacier snout which then forms icebergs.
60
What is névé or firn?
Partially melted and compacted snow that survives the year's ablation season.
61
What is the equilibrium point in a glacier?
Ablation losses and accumulation gains are balanced within a glacier.
62
What is a benchmark glacier?
A glacier chosen to be monitored annually for ablation and accumulation.
63
What is basal sliding?
The sliding of a glacier over the surface it rests on.
64
What is intergranular flow?
When individual ice crystals deform and begin to move in relation to each other.
65
What is continuous permafrost?
Form of permafrost that exists across a landscape as an unbroken layer.
66
What is discontinuous permafrost?
Form of permafrost that contains numerous scattered pockets of unfrozen ground.
67
What is sporadic permafrost?
Form of permafrost that exists as small islands of frozen ground in otherwise unfrozen soil and sediments.
68
What is plucking?
Erosive process of particle detachment by moving glacial ice.
69
What is loess?
When glaciers grind rocks to a fine powder the wind can transport the fine, mineral-rich material.
70
What is abrasion?
Physical wearing and grinding of a surface through friction and impact by material carried in water or ice.
71
What is internal deformation?
A 'creep' method found generally in cold-based glaciers where the ice crystals orientate themselves in the direction of movement.
72
What is laminar flow?
Where individual layers of the glacier move.
73
What is sheer stress?
Caused by the mass of glacier, greatest in centre of glacier.
74
What is resistive stress?
Caused by friction, greatest at bottom and sides of glacier.

physical geography (3 decks)

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