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Glacial polishing is the result of clasts embedded in glacial ice passing over bedrock and grinding down the top of the rock into a smoother surface. The small rocks entrained by plucking act like sandpaper to the downhill slope. [7] This creates an almost mirror like surface in the rock.
A glacial erratic is a glacially deposited rock differing from the type of rock native to the area in which it rests. Erratics, which take their name from the Latin word errare ("to wander"), are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundreds of kilometres.
Glacial abrasion is the surface wear achieved by individual clasts, or rocks of various sizes, contained within ice or by subglacial sediment as the glacier slides over bedrock. [9] Abrasion can crush smaller grains or particles and remove grains or multigrain fragments, but the removal of larger fragments is classified as plucking (or ...
Roche moutonnée near Myot Hill, Scotland In glaciology, a roche moutonnée (or sheepback) is a rock formation created by the passing of a glacier.The passage of glacial ice over underlying bedrock often results in asymmetric erosional forms as a result of abrasion on the "stoss" (upstream) side of the rock, and plucking (i.e. pieces cracked off) on the "lee" (downstream) side.
Terminal moraine of Wordie Glacier, Greenland Map of the Salpausselkä terminal moraines in Southern Finland. A terminal moraine, also called an end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance.
The two mechanisms of glacial abrasion are striation of the bedrock by coarse grains moved by the glacier, thus gouging the rock below, and polishing of the bedrock by smaller grains such as silts. Glacial plucking is the removal of large blocks from the bed of a glacier.
Known as glacial rock flour, the silt is crushed to nano-particles by the weight of the retreating ice sheet, which deposits roughly one billion tonnes of it on the world's largest island per year.
Glaciers contain large amounts of sediment (i.e. sand, silt, clay) that is gathered through glacial erosional processes such as abrasion between the glacier and the underlying rocks, and through glacial plucking. As the glacier begins to retreat and ablation increases, the melting ice deposits sediments from a single source at the terminus of ...