A glacier is a huge river of ice. Really huge… as in can cover the side of a mountain, or a big part of a continent. A minimum size to be considered a glacier is 0.1 km2 (about 100 ft2). Glaciers are formed as snow accumulates and doesn’t all melt away. It just piles up, a little more each year. It remains all year long; which distinguishes glaciers from any other large pile of snow. The snow starts out in fluffy piles like we are familiar with, but it piles up very thick for glaciers, some old glaciers are as thick as two miles! The result is ice that is no longer fluffy snow, but more like a huge river of ice that moves like silly putty. The movement is very slow, at most as fast as a few meters per year, but usually closer to a few centimeters each year.
Where are they found?
Glaciers are found on mountains around the world and as ice sheets in cold, snowy climates such as on Antarctica and Greenland. Glaciers cover about one tenth of the land area of Earth. Glaciers are on land, not over ocean; sea ice does not count as a glacier (which means the ice cap on the Arctic Ocean of the North Pole is not a glacier). Glaciers are found as close by as Mt. Hood.
There is a U.S. National Park dedicated to some spectacular glaciers, Glacier National Park, in Montant. It was established in 1910. Of the 150 named glaciers present there in 1850, only 26 presently exist and scientists expect them to all be gone in the next 10-20 years.
Cool glacier fact:
The largest glacier in the world is Antarctica's Lambert Glacier, measured at 100 km (60 miles) wide, over 400 km (250 miles) longand about 2,500 meters (1.5 miles) deep.
What is a glacier?
A glacier is a huge river of ice. Really huge… as in can cover the side of a mountain, or a big part of a continent. A minimum size to be considered a glacier is 0.1 km2 (about 100 ft2). Glaciers are formed as snow accumulates and doesn’t all melt away. It just piles up, a little more each year. It remains all year long; which distinguishes glaciers from any other large pile of snow.
The snow starts out in fluffy piles like we are familiar with, but it piles up very thick for glaciers, some old glaciers are as thick as two miles! The result is ice that is no longer fluffy snow, but more like a huge river of ice that moves like silly putty. The movement is very slow, at most as fast as a few meters per year, but usually closer to a few centimeters each year.
Where are they found?
Glaciers are found on mountains around the world and as ice sheets in cold, snowy climates such as on Antarctica and Greenland. Glaciers cover about one tenth of the land area of Earth. Glaciers are on land, not over ocean; sea ice does not count as a glacier (which means the ice cap on the Arctic Ocean of the North Pole is not a glacier).Glaciers are found as close by as Mt. Hood.
There is a U.S. National Park dedicated to some spectacular glaciers, Glacier National Park, in Montant. It was established in 1910. Of the 150 named glaciers present there in 1850, only 26 presently exist and scientists expect them to all be gone in the next 10-20 years.
Cool glacier fact:
Read more: http://www.suite101.com/content/the-antarctics-lambert-glacier-a170074