What is a terrestrial glacier?

Glaciers and ice sheets are perennial accumulations of ice and snow that flow downslope, slowly, due to their own weight. These terrestrial (land-based) ice masses often are classified by size as either glaciers, ice caps, or ice sheets. Glaciers flow within mountain valleys. …

What is glacial cover?

As ice sheets spread, they cover everything around them with a thick blanket of ice, including valleys, plains, and even entire mountains. The largest ice sheets, called continental glaciers, spread over vast areas. Today, continental glaciers cover most of Antarctica and the island of Greenland.

What is a melting glacier called?

Downwasting. The thinning of a glacier due to the melting of ice. This loss of thickness may occur in both moving and stagnant ice.

What defines a glacier?

A glacier is a large, perennial accumulation of crystalline ice, snow, rock, sediment, and often liquid water that originates on land and moves down slope under the influence of its own weight and gravity.

What is Piedmont glacier?

Piedmont glaciers occur when steep valley glaciers spill into relatively flat plains, where they spread out into bulb-like lobes. Malaspina Glacier is one of the most famous examples of this type of glacier, and is the largest piedmont glacier in the world.

Can I drink glacial water?

It’s not advisable to drink glacier water, even if the water appears clean. It could be contaminated by organic or inorganic pollutants or even a microscopic parasite. So, anything can happen when one consumes melted glacial water. One could get sick immediately or after a couple of weeks or months.

What are the three main types of glaciers?

Glaciers are classifiable in three main groups: (1) glaciers that extend in continuous sheets, moving outward in all directions, are called ice sheets if they are the size of Antarctica or Greenland and ice caps if they are smaller; (2) glaciers confined within a path that directs the ice movement are called mountain …