Essential Facts and Fascinating Information About Glaciers and Ice Sheets
Published by Along parts of the Antarctic coast, glacial ice flows into bays, where it forms shelves of floating ice hundreds of metres thick. They extend out to sea, but remain attached to land on at least one side. Shelves can remain stable for millions of years. The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest, and covers a similar area to France. The Filchner Ice Shelf is the second largest.
Essential Facts and Fascinating Information about Glaciers and Ice Sheets
By Mr Ghaz, September 5, 2010
Essential Facts and Fascinating Information about Glaciers and Ice Sheets
Core Facts
A glacier is a thick mass of accumulated ice that moves, of flows, downhill under the force of gravity. There are two main types, ice sheets and valley glaciers.
On an ice sheet, ice flows out in all directions from one or more snow- accumulation centres and covers all the underlying land. Greenland and Antarctica currently qualify as ice sheets.
Where the tongue of a glacier extends out over the sea it forms an ice shelf.
Valley glaciers occur in mountains. Where they form streams of ice flowing downhill between rock walls. As ice flows, it erodes and alters the landscape beneath it.
The Arctic Ocean is covered by large areas of floating or pack ice.
Major Glaciers in Each Region
Antarctica Lambert-Fisher 515km (320 miles); Arctic Institute 418km (260 miles); Beardmore 225km (140 miles)
Russia Novaya Zemlya 418km (260 miles)
USA Bering (Alaska) 204km (126 miles); Hubbard (Alaska) 146km (91 miles)
Greenland Peterman 200km (124 miles); Humboldt 114km (71 miles)
Norway Jodestals 75km (45 miles)
India/Pakistan Siachen 70km (44 miles)
Antarctic Ice Sheet
· Antarctica is the largest ice sheet in the world, covering an area of 13.9 million km2 (5.4 million sq miles), one and a half times the area of the USA.
· The ice sheet is up to 4300m (14,000ft) thick in places and contains 80 per cent of the world’s ice. Two-thirds of the world’s freshwater is locked up in it
Liked it
On September 5, 2010 at 11:57 am
love the scenery.. great share my friend.
On September 5, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Excellent post……………
thanks for share.
On September 5, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Well composed and presented nicely too. thank you.
On September 5, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Awesome entry, friend.
On September 5, 2010 at 11:09 pm
Wowwh… very good post.. as usual….
On September 6, 2010 at 1:08 am
Wow! very cool post, Mr. Ghaz
On September 6, 2010 at 9:40 am
That is such an impressive post. I never realised there was so much to learn about ice in its different forms. Brilliant work.
Christine
On September 6, 2010 at 1:54 pm
every time you shared amazing info…i liked your post..really amazing..
On September 6, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Fascinating informations and amazing facts. I learn something.
On September 9, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Great one
thanks for share.
On September 9, 2010 at 1:30 pm
fascinating.
On January 31, 2011 at 9:35 pm
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