Question

Which glacier is carried by the debris of boulders and coarse material?

Answer 1

The debris of boulder and coarse material carried by a glacier is known as End Moraine or Terminal Moraine. It is found usually at the end of the glaciers as sheets or piles of debris when the glacier melts found in Arctic.

Glaciers

• Masses of ice moving as sheets as linear flows down the slopes of mountains in broad trough-like valleys or moving over the land (piedmont or continental glacier) are called glaciers.
• The movement of glaciers is due to gravity.
• In a day the movement of glaciers could be a few centimetres to a few metres. The movement is very slow.
• Due to the friction caused by the tremendous weight of the ice, the erosion by glaciers is very large.

Glaciers in India

• Glaciers in India can be seen over the valleys and slopes of Himalayas in the states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir etc.

Erosional Landforms Caused by Glaciers

The different erosional landforms caused by glaciers are

1. Cirque
2. Horns and Serrated Ridges
3. Glacial Valleys or Troughs
4. Moraines
5. Depositional Landforms
6. Eskers
7. Outwash Plains
8. Drumlins

Cirque

• They are often found at the heads of glacial valleys.
• In glaciated mountains, it is the most common landform.
• After the glacier disappears, within the cirques, a lake of water can often be seen.
• These lakes are known as tarn lakes or cirque.

Moraines

• They are long ridges of deposits of glacial till.
• Along the sides parallel to the glacial valleys, lateral moraines can be found.
• Ground moraines greatly vary in the surface topography and thickness.
• Long ridges of debris deposited at the end of the glaciers are terminal moraines.
• Flanked by lateral moraines, the moraines formed at the centre of the glacial valley are known as medial moraine.

Glacial Valleys/Troughs

• These have steep and relatively smooth sides with broad floors.
• They are U-shaped.
• In high latitudes, along the shoreline, there are very deep glacial troughs filled with seawater. These are known as fiords/fjords.

Horns and Serrated Ridges

• Due to headward erosion of radiating cirques, horns are formed. Example is Mount Everest.
• serrated or saw-toothed ridges are formed, when there is progressive erosion, divides between cirque side walls or headwalls get narrow.

Drumlins

• An indication of direction of glacier movement is given by Drumlins.
• Smooth oval shaped ridge-like features mainly consisting of glacial till with some masses of sand and gravel are known as Drumlins.