GLACIER

A glacier is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight.

THE LARGEST
RESERVOIR OF
FRESH WATER
ON EARTH
Glacial ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on earth. Many glaciers form temperate, alpine and seasonal polar climates store water as ice during the cold seasons and release it later in the form of melt water as warmer summer temperatures cause the glacier to melt, creating a water source that is especially important for plants, animals and human uses when other sources may be scant.

STRIATIONS
tSriations are scratches formed on a rock surface by rock fragments frozen into the bottom of a moving glacier.

GLACIAL
LANDFORMS
Glacial landforms are landforms created by the action of glaciers. As the glaciers expanded, due to their accumulating weight of snow and ice, they crush and abrade scoured surface rocks and bedrock. Sand and rock particles are carried down by the moving masses of ice. This causes the formation of various glacial erosional landforms.

ARETE
An arête is a thin, almost knifelike, ridge of rock which is ്യേുically formed when two glaciers erode parallel Ushaped valleys.
Different ്യേുes of valleys are also formed by glacial erosion.
=Ushaped valleys The erosion caused by the continuous movement of glaciers along the valleys carves out steep sided and flat bottomed Ushaped valleys.
=Cirques Arm chair like valleys are formed by the glacial erosion.
=Moraines The sediments carried down by the glaciers will be deposited in various parts of the valley. These depositional features by glaciers are called moraines.