Glacial Landforms

EROSION LANDFORMS
 Cirques/Corries
 Formation  Location and description
 Snow falls unto a hollow  Where conditions are favorable
 As more snow falls the original layer  Northern hemisphere = North
becomes firn (if it lasted longer than facing slopes
one calendar year)  Round armchair shaped hollow
 Over thousand of years the pressure  Steep jagged back wall
build and the fin becomes glacier ice
 abrasion, plucking and freeze-thaw
action will gradually make the hollow
bigger
 Gravity encourages the glacier to
move downwards
 rotational slip can cause the ice to
pull away from the back wall creating
a crevasse
 Some of this debris is deposited at
the edge of the corrie, building up
the lip
 If the ice melts at the bottom of the
cirque then a small lake called a tarn
is formed
crevasse
 Arêtes and Pyramidal Peaks
 Formation of Arêtes  Formation of
 Two adjacent cirques Pyramidal Peaks
are eroded backwards  Three or more cirques
by plucking and erode backwards
abrasion  The arêtes meet at a
 As they erode point –the pyramidal
backwards a knife peak
edged ridge is formed
– this is the arête
 Glacial Troughs
 Formation  Description
 The glacial moves  U-Shaped
through any non  Wide
resistant rock  Steep sides
 As the Glacier is
 deep
powerful and wide it
causes a flat u-shaped
valley
 Hanging Valleys and Truncated Spurs
 Formation – Hanging Valleys  Formation- Truncated Spurs
 As the Glacier erodes deeper  When a river erodes the
into the Valley the tributary landscape, ridges of land
is left high up form in its upper course
 These erode and channel  These jut into the river –
into the valley – Hanging interlocking spurs
Valley  The glacier cuts straight
 Sometimes waterfalls can through these – Truncated
run off Spurs
 Roche Montonnées
 Formation  Description
 A glacier reaches a resistant
 Steep jagged edge on
rock
 It flows over and around it
lee side - plucking
 Leaves a rock mount  Gradual gradient on
smoothed on one side by stoss side – abrasion
abrasion
 Sitrations
 The Lee side is jagged due
to plucking
Glacial Landforms
DEPOSITION LANDFORMS
 Till
 Formation – non fluvial  Formation – Fluvial
 The glacier deposits  This is deposited by
the material load the melt water
 The material is  As the water moves
unstratified/ unsorted and deposits the
material is sorted
 Moraines
 Formation –Ground Moraine  Formation –medial moraine
 As the glacier moves it deposits till  Two lateral moraines and two
over the Valley floor glaciers meet
 Found where the Glacier ice meets  The two moraines find themselves
the rock underneath in the center of the glacier and line
 Can be washed out by melt water up in the middle of the glaciers
 Formation –Lateral Moraine surface
 As the glacier moves material from  Formation – recessional moraine
the valley wall is broken up by frost  Formed at the end of a glacier –
shattering across the valley not along
 This falls on to the ice surface  retreating glacier remained
 It forms a ridge of material along stationary for sufficient time to
the valley sides produce a mound of material
 formation is the same as for a
terminal moraine
 but they occur where the retreating
ice paused rather than at the
furthest extent of the ice.
 Moraines
 Formation – Push moraines  Formation – Terminal moraine
 Can only be formed by a glacier that has  Formed at the snout
retreated and advanced  Marks the furthest extent of the glacier
 Evidence that the climate became poor  Formed across the valley floor
after a warm period  The feature that marks between glacier
unsorted material and fluvial sorted material
 Material that has already been deposited
 Formation – Supraglacial moraine
is pushed into a pile as it advances
 material on the surface of the glacier, including
 Most moraine material was deposited by lateral and medial moraine, loose rock debris
falling down not pushing up, there are and dust settling out from the atmosphere
characteristic differences in the  Formation - Englacial Moraine
orientation of rocks  material trapped within the ice. It includes
 individual rocks that have been pushed material that has fallen down crevasses and the
rocks being scraped along the valley floor
upwards from their original horizontal
positions- Key feature in identifying
 Erratic
 Formation:  Description:
 The glacier moves over  A large boulder/ rock
the continents that doesn’t match the
 As it moves it deposits geology of the
unsorted material surrounding landscape
 Erractics are boulders
that have been
transported and are
different to the rocks
in the landscape
around
 Drumlins
 Formation  Description
 As the glacier moves it  Steep Stoss end
deposits till often over  Gentle Lee Slope
an object  can reach a kilometre or
 This till builds up and more in length
forms an elongated  500m or so in width
slope
 over 50m in height
 The Stoss end is steep as
most of the material is
deposited as the glacier  The exact formation is
moves the deposits unknown – the one on
reduce creating a more the left is the accepted
gradual slope one
Glacial Landforms
GLACIAL FLUVIAL
 Kames and Kames Terraces
 Formation of Kames:  Formation of Kames Terraces:
 Mounds of sediment that are  Also formed of sands and
deposited along the front of a gravels
stationary or slow moving  Form along the side not at the
glacier snout
 The sediment consists of  Formed by actions of
sands and gravels meltwater streams alongside
 builds up into mounds as the the glacier
ice melts and more sediment  The valley warms up in the
is deposited on top of old summer and melts the ice
debris. nearest it
 Often, a kame will collapse  This forms a depression/
when the ice melts back and trough where the meltwater
leaves the mound flows
unsupported  They become sorted of they
are deposited by water – can
be distinguished from lateral
moraines
 Kettle Holes
 Formation:  Description
 Formed by blocks of ice  Newly glaciated areas =
separated from the main Kettles form obvious small
glacier – by glacial retreat lakes in the outwash
or falling from the snout plains.
 If conditions are right, the  In areas glaciated in
isolated blocks of ice then historic times = preserved
become partially buried in as isolated small
meltwater sediments lakes/deep water filled
 ce blocks eventually melt depressions in boggy areas
they leave behind holes or that were once the low
depressions that fill with lying outwash plains.
water to become Kettle
Hole Lakes
 Eskers
 Formation:  Description:
 The glacier melts  Long narrow, winding
forming a stream ridges
 This deposits sand and  Several kilometers long
gravel
 These channel deposits
are left behind when the
glacier retreats
 Most eskers are argued
to have formed within
ice-walled tunnels by
streams which flowed
within and under
glaciers
 Varves
 Formation:  Description
 Varves are found in the  Consists of two layers – lower
deposits of glacial lakes layer = sandy material –
 Most melting of the glacier upper layer = darker silt
occurs in spring and early  F you count the number of
summer= meltwater streams varves you can determine the
flow fastest and carry their age of the lake
greatest loads.  The varying thicknesses of the
 Fine material is held in varves provides information
suspension in the lake whilst about climatic conditions.
heavier material is deposited Thick varves = increased
 As autumn and winter deposition, caused by warmer
approach= capacity and temperatures and increased
competence of the meltwater melting.
streams is reduced due to less  Thin varves suggest little
melting and less meltwater = deposition because of
finer material to be deposited reduced melting and outwash.
Glacial Landforms
PERIGLACIAL LANDFORMS
 Ice Wedges
 Formation:  Description:
 A thin piece of ice  Usually in polygons
around 3-4 meters of  Temperatures need to be
length (ground)causes a −6° to −8°C or colder
crack in the rock  up to 3–4 meters in
 In the winter the ice length at ground level
freezes and expands and extends downwards
 When the temperatures into the ground up to
rise the ice melts and several meters
more water fills the
crack and permafrost
freezes it
 This process repeats
itself
 Patterned Ground
 Formation
 Description:
 This process happens within the active
layer. Cold penetrates faster through
stones faster than the surrounding
 Unsorted
 Can come in: stripes,
material because of their lower specific
heat capacity =the soil directly
underneath a stone is more likely to
freeze first. This freezing and expanding
polygons, circles and
of the soil pushes the stone towards the steps – depending on
surface (frost heave).
 The stone ascends it pushes the finer availability of rocks
sediment above it upwards too, creating
a more compacted dome of finer
material at the surface.
 The stone eventually surfaces it rolls
under gravity depositing around the
edge of the mound.
 Stone polygons form best on flat ground
whereas stone stripes are elongated
polygons on steeper slopes exceeding
six degrees.
 Pingos
 Formation  Description:
 Closed system pingos or  They can reach up to 60 metres
Mackenzie Pingos are in height and 600 metres in
periglacial landforms diameter
 These pingos are formed on the
site of a lake infilled with
sediment. This means that the
ground is insulated therefore it
allows liquid water to collect
beneath the sediment.
 In the winter the sediment
starts to freeze and expand-
water confined due to pressure
 The water eventually freezes
and expands, pushing the
sediment above it upwards
forming a mound.
 During the summer in the next
year the ice core melts causing
the mound to cave in on itself
leaving a dip.
 Scree Slopes and Soil Creep
 Formation – Scree Slopes:  Formation- Soil Creep
 Freeze-thaw weathering
breaks up the rock
 Soil particle picked up
 water in the joints freezes
and pushed up by
and expands frost
 continued freezing, the rock  When the frost melts
eventually breaks apart with
the particle is
the resulting pieces forming
patches of scree deposited further
downhill
 Process is slow
 Solifluction sheets and Lobes
 Formation  Description:
 Saturated soils freeze  Solifluction lobe =
and thaw at different isolated, tongue shaped
points beyond the feature – steep front,
permafrost zone smooth surface
 Material making up the
active layer is loose
 As the ice melts a layer
of film is created
between the permafrost
and active layer
 This causes the
sediment to slip
 Glacial Landforms
Powerpoint

BY KATIE ANN SHEEHAN