Glaciation
Year 9 🏔️ Physical Geography Glacial processes, landforms, and glacial environments.
❄️ Glacial Processes
Glaciers shape landscapes through erosion, transportation, and deposition.
Freeze-Thaw Weathering
Water enters cracks, freezes and expands, shattering rock (frost shattering). Provides angular material for glaciers.
Abrasion
Rock fragments embedded in glacier act as sandpaper, grinding and smoothing the rock below. Creates smooth, striated surfaces.
Plucking
Meltwater freezes around rock outcrops. As ice moves, rock is torn away. Creates jagged, uneven terrain.
Ice Movement
Rotational sliding (in corries) and basal sliding (lubricated by meltwater). Ice deforms internally under pressure.
🏔️ Glacial Landforms
Glaciers create distinctive erosional and depositional landforms.
Corrie (Cirque)
Armchair-shaped hollow on mountainside. Formed by rotational sliding and freeze-thaw. Contains a tarn (lake).
U-Shaped Valley
Glacier widens and deepens a V-shaped river valley. Steep sides, flat floor. Hanging valleys at tributary mouths.
Arête
Knife-edge ridge between two corries or U-valleys, carved from both sides.
Moraine & Drumlins
Moraine = glacial deposits. Terminal moraine at furthest extent. Drumlins = elongated mounds of till, blunt end faces ice.
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