- Industry: Government
- Number of terms: 1577
- Number of blossaries: 0
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The scientific agency of the United States Department of the Interior, USGS's mission is to provide information to describe and understand the earth, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it.
The layering or banding that develops in a glacier during the process of transformation of snow to glacier ice. Individual layers, called folia, are visible because of differences in crystal or grain size, alternation of clear ice and bubbly ice, or because of entrained sediment.
Industry:Water bodies
A jagged pinnacle or tower of glacier ice located on the surface of a glacier, formed as a glacier flows down an icefall or by the intersection of crevasses. Frequently, large areas of a glacier will be covered by séracs.
Industry:Water bodies
A ridge of glacial sediment that forms when the terminus of a retreating glacier remains at or near a single location for a period of time sufficient for a cross-valley accumulation to form.
Industry:Water bodies
The process by which pieces of ice break away from the terminus of a glacier that ends in a body of water or from the edge of a floating ice shelf that ends in the ocean. Once they enter the water, the pieces are called icebergs.
Industry:Water bodies
A collective term used to describe all types of glacier sedimentary deposits, regardless of the size or amount of sorting. The term includes all sediment that is transported by a glacier, whether it is deposited directly by a glacier or indirectly by running water that originates from a glacier.
Industry:Water bodies
The in-situ melting of glacier ice. Many glaciers have stagnant termini, covered by thick sediment debris. Some support vegetation, including mature forests.
Industry:Water bodies
The loss of ice and snow from a glacier system. This occurs through a variety of processes including melting and runoff, sublimation, evaporation, calving, and wind transportation of snow out of a glacier basin.
Industry:Water bodies
An elongated, rounded, asymmetrical, bedrock knob produced by glacier erosion. It has a gentle slope on its up-glacier side and a steep- to vertical-face on the down-glacier side.
Industry:Water bodies
A large, perennial accumulation of ice, snow, rock, sediment and liquid water originating on land and moving down slope under the influence of its own weight and gravity; a dynamic river of ice. Glaciers are classified by their size, location, and thermal regime.
Industry:Water bodies
The part of a glacier that is perennially covered with snow. Also called névé.
Industry:Water bodies
