Features of glaciers and ice sheets

Snow does not melt even in summer in cold weather. They form layers that turn into ice and form glaciers. They flow slowly downhill until they either melt or reach the sea. Huge glaciers in the polar regions form thick ice caps that obscure the landscape and spread over the oceans in the form of ice caps.

Ice cave

Melted water can carve spectacular ice caves beneath glaciers.

Snow to ice

In the high mountains, some of the snow that falls in winter is frozen throughout the summer. When winter starts again, more snow falls on it. Over time, ice forms. Its weight compresses the lower layers, expelling most of the air, and converts the ice into solid blue ice.

Creeping glaciers

Snow formed from the compressed ice on a mountain slides like glaciers. Moving ice clears the landscape, creating deep U-shaped basins. It also carries rocks in the middle of long glaciers on the edge of glaciers, or in the middle of two glaciers. They are called moraines.

The front of the ice

A mountain glacier flows downhill until it reaches a low altitude where the air temperature is warm enough to melt. If the climate is stable, the glaciers move forward as fast as the ice melts, and the front of the ice remains in place. These are marked by deep ice pits and rock mound terminals moraine.

Ice sheet

Antarctica and Greenland are covered with amazingly deep ice caps. A sheet of East Antarctic ice forms a massive dome up to a thickness of 2.8 miles (4.5 km), and its weight causes the rock beneath it to sink 0.6 miles (1 km) into the Earth’s crust. Parts of the Antarctic ice sheet spread like ice floes across the ocean.

ICE shelf:- Antarctic ice shelves have steep cliffs up to 160 feet (50 m) high.

Retreating glaciers

Most of the world’s glaciers are melting due to global warming. The lower reaches of many mountain glaciers have disappeared, so they seem to have retreated. Some coastal glaciers are collapsing, along with many Antarctic ice caps, and sea levels are rising as all the extra ice falls into the sea.

Iceberg

When a glacier flows to shore, its floating front or snot spreads over the water. Large chunks of ice break in front and float as chunks of iceberg. Some glaciers are huge, tens or even hundreds of miles. But they slowly melt, adding more water to the oceans and forming rocky mounds on the ocean floor.

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