1. Like running water, gravity is the driving force
behind all glaciers. The ice moves material
from high places and deposits it in low places
There are 2 primary types of glaciers:
Alpine (Valley) Glacier – These form in mountainous
regions where the elevation is high enough to support ice all
year round
Continental Glacier (Ice Sheet) – These form over large land areas
In very high latitudes. There are only 2 that exist in the world today,
In Antarctica, and Greenland.

2. Alpine Glaciers

3. Alpine Glaciers Permanent snow accumulates when new snow falls on
old snow.
Alpine Glaciers
Like a slow moving river
the ice starts sliding
down the mountain
in the valley between
the peaks and ridges
When the snow
becomes thick
enough the
bottom layers
get compressed
into ice

4. The ice whittles the peaks
into sharp points called
horns

5. World’s most famous horn,
The Matter Horn in Switzerland

6. Merging
glaciers
Medial
moraine

7. After the snow melts,
the glaciated mountains
look like this

8. U shaped valley

9. Steep side of U shaped valley is called
a hanging wall

10. Watch out
for these
crevasse

11. Rock on the valley floor gets scratched
and polished
Fresh surface
not scratched

12. Glacially polished bedrock

13. More polishing
with striations and glacial scratching

14. The surface
of glacier
gets dirty
in summer

15. Glacial sediments are always unsorted At the front or leading edge
Of the glacier
terminal moraine
is pushed into
a bank of unsorted
sediments
Glacial sediments
are always
unsorted

16. Terminal moraine
Outwash plain

17. Calving occurs
where a glacier meets
the sea

18. Icebergs form where chunks
of the glacier break off

19. Some icebergs are as big as a city

20. Continental Glaciers (Ice sheets)

21. Great North American Ice sheet 10,000 years ago Today the ice sheet is
limited to only Greenland

22. These are called transported soils
Throughout the mid-west and northeast there is
much evidence that the region was covered by
a mile thick layer of ice only 10,000 years ago
Most of the soils here have been
scraped from Canada and deposited by the glacier
These are called transported soils

23. As the glacier retreated northward,
It left behind much evidence of
It’s presence

25. Drumlin near the Finger Lakes

26. Drumlin in Wisconsin
Which direction is south?

27. Erratic in Central Park

28. Glacial Erratic in
Yellowstone National park

29. terminal moraine
on north shore of
Long Island

30. Kettle lakes
Esker in Wisconsin

31. Kame

32. Kame used for
Sand and gravel