Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Plucking is increased where there are preexisting fractures in a rock bed. As the glacier slides down a mountain, energy from friction, pressure or geothermal heat causes glacial meltwater to infiltrate the spaces between rocks. [4] This process, known as frost wedging, puts stress on
Glacial plucking is the removal of large blocks from the bed of a glacier. [11] Much of the silt in till is produced by glacial grinding, [4] and the longer the till remains at the ice-bedrock interface, the more thoroughly it is crushed. However, the crushing process appears to stop with fine silt.
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.
This process can make the existing terminal moraine far larger than its previous size. [2] Dump moraines occur when rock, sediment, and debris, which accumulate at the top surface of the glacier, either slide, fall, or flow off of the snout of the glacier. The accumulation of till will form a terminal moraine as the glacier retreats. [2]
Fluvioglacial deposits differ from glacial till in that they were deposited by means of water, rather than the glacial itself, and the sediments are thus also more size sorted than glacial till is. The stone walls of New England contain many glacial erratics, rocks that were dragged by a glacier many miles from their bedrock origin.
Multiple erratics on the terminal moraine of the Okanogan Lobe. The Cascade Mountains are in the background.. The term "erratic" is commonly used to refer to erratic blocks, which geologist Archibald Geikie describes as: "large masses of rock, often as big as a house, that have been transported by glacier ice, and have been lodged in a prominent position in the glacier valleys or have been ...
Glaciers can also cause pieces of bedrock to crack off in the process of plucking. In ice thrusting, the glacier freezes to its bed, then as it surges forward, it moves large sheets of frozen sediment at the base along with the glacier. This method produced some of the many thousands of lake basins that dot the edge of the Canadian Shield ...