Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Cold Environments: Fluvioglacial Processes and
Landforms
- The Importance of Meltwater
- Melting snow helps to enlarge the shallow nivation hollows
that eventually become corries when the snow turns to ice
- Helps to lubricate the base of the glacier.
- Transports moraine beneath the ice, where it
provides tools for glacial erosion
- When freezes, can help with plucking.
- Erode channels and form distinctive depositional features - both in front
of and beneath the ice.
- Fluvioglacial Landforms: Meltwater
Related Features
- Meltwater Channels
- Takes the form of a steep-sided , often dry, valley carved into
the landscape
- Most commonly results from the overspill of a lake that builds up
next to or in front of a glacier
- Eskers
- Long ridges of sand and gravel. They can be up to 30 meters high and usually take the
form of meandering hills-often stretching for several kilometres-that run roughly parallel to
the valley sides.
- Meandering shape suggests they were formed by subglacial river deposition during the
final stages of a glacial period
- Kames
- Kame Terrace: Most extensive type of kame. Results from the infilling or a marginal glacial
lake. When the ice finally melts, the kame terrace is abandoned as a ridge on the valley
side.
- Kame Delta: A smaller feature that forms when a stream deposits
material on entering a marginal lake. Small mound-like hills, and can
be identified by their deltaic sedimentation characteristics.
- Crevasse Kame: Some kames arise from the flucial deposition of sediments in surface crevasses. When
ice melts, they are deposited on the valley floor to form small hummocks
- Outwash Plain
- A gentle sloping area of sands and gravels that forms in front of the glacier.
- Results from the 'outwash' of sediment carried by meltwater streams and rivers.
- At the end of a glacial period, huge quantities of sediment
will be spread out over the outwash plain by great torrents of
meltwater.