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Ice calving, also known as glacier calving or iceberg calving, is the breaking of ice chunks from the edge of a glacier. [1] It is a form of ice ablation or ice disruption . It is the sudden release and breaking away of a mass of ice from a glacier , iceberg , ice front , ice shelf , or crevasse .
A moulin (or glacier mill) is a roughly circular, vertical (or nearly vertical) well-like shaft formed where a surface meltstream exploits a weakness in the ice. The term is derived from the French word for mill.
Glacial plucking both exploits pre-existing fractures in the bedrock and requires continued fracturing to maintain the cycle of erosion. [4] Glacial plucking is most significant where the rock surface is well jointed or fractured or where it contains exposed bed planes, as this allows meltwater and clasts to penetrate more easily. [2]
The Jacobshavn Isbræ, or Jacobshavn Glacier, has a large drainage basin and is one of Greenland’s largest and fastest-flowing outlet glaciers. Large calving produces a long floating ice tongue that rapidly melts in spring suggesting that the tongue is formed by a dense pack of calved icebergs and is an ice mélange.
As a glacier retreats, chunks of ice may break off in a process known as ice calving or glacier calving. As sediment-heavy glacial meltwater flows past the stationary ice block, the increased friction between the ice and sediment causes sediment build-up around the block of ice. The sediment may become so extensive as to completely bury the ice ...
Using data collected from 13 Alaskan tidewater calving glaciers, Brown et al. (1982) derived the following relationship between calving speed and water depth: = +, where is the mean calving speed (m⋅a −1), is a calving coefficient (27.1±2 a −1), is the mean water depth at glacier front (m) and is a constant (0 m⋅a −1). Pelto and ...
Fox Glacier, New Zealand. A serac (/ s ɛ ˈ r æ k ˌ ˈ s ɛ r æ k /) (from Swiss French sérac) is a block or column of glacial ice, often formed by intersecting crevasses on a glacier. Commonly house-sized or larger, they are dangerous to mountaineers, since they may topple with little warning. Even when stabilized by persistent cold ...
Ablation zone or ablation area refers to the low-altitude area of a glacier or ice sheet below firn with a net loss in ice mass. This loss can result from melting, sublimation, evaporation, ice calving, aeolian processes like blowing snow, avalanche, and any other ablation.