Chapter 14 Objectives:
Geography 12
Worksheet 14

Key
Distinctive Landscapes: Glacial, Periglacial, and Coastal
Environments
Read pages 276 – 298 of Planet Earth: A Physical Geography. Answer
the following questions:
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

Vocabulary (1 mark each)
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Firn: granular snow or compacted ice crystals that are being transformed into solid
glacial ice by periodic melting and freezing and the pressure of overlying snow layers.

Recognize that
understandings about
glaciers, glaciation, and
permafrost are relatively
recent;
Understand the processes by
which ice an d waves move,
erode, transport, and deposit
materials;
Describe the unique
landforms and processes that
result from the action of
glaciers, frost, and wave
action;
Appreciate the impacts
glaciation, frost, and wave
action have on the
landscapes where they
operate;
Develop and understanding
and respect for the power of
natural processes.
Basal slippage: the sliding of a glacier over bedrock, aided by the lubricating effect
of water, melted by the heat of friction, along the surface between the glacier and its bed.
Snout: the lowest or advancing front of a glacier.
Glacial till: ice-deposited material made up of an unsorted jumble of clay, sand, silt, gravel, and
boulders.
Moraine: a deposit of glacial till transported and deposited by a glacier.
Drumlin: a streamlined, tear-shaped hill with a wide, round front end, or stoss, and a longer, tapering
tail formed when a glacier re-advances over a previously existing moraine.
Outwash plain: a gently sloping plain composed of sand, gravel, and silt laid down by streams flowing
out from the front of a melting ice sheet.
Cirque: a bowl-shaped depression cut into a mountain by a glacier as it advances from an icefield or
snowfield.
Tarn: a lake occupying the bottom of a cirque eroded by a glacier that has since completely melted.
Permafrost: ground that has been frozen for more than two years; found in high latitude regions.
Solifluction: the slow, downhill movement of water-saturated rock and soil materials; commonly
occurs in summer in high latitude climates where the soil is underlain by permafrost.
Tombolo: a sea stack or small island attached to the mainland by a sandbar.
Spit: a sand bar, formed by wave action, extending out into a body of water that is attached to land at
only one end.
Tide: a regular rise and fall of sea level produced by the gravitational attraction of the moon and the
centrifugal force of the earth’s rotation.
Short Answer (2 marks each)
1. Explain how the following conditions are required to form glaciers (3 marks)
-Temperature…required so summer months don’t melt all the snow
-Snowfall…must exceed the annual melt
-Pressure…compressing the snow and squeezing the air out forms ice sheets called firn
2. What starts the glacier flowing downslope? (3 marks)
-plastic deformation….flattening of ice crystals that allows them to slide over one another
-minature faults…allow blocks of ice to slip over, past, and beside each other.
-basal slippage…friction causes heat and a thin layer of water, which makes the glacier slippery
3. Explain in your own words how a glacier that is advancing appears to be
stationary. (1 mark)
-
When the snout(front) of the glacier reaches warmer areas, it melts and balances the rate of the
moving glacier. The glacier continues to move, but the edge seems to be stationary..it is actually
meltin.
4. Briefly explain the three ways glaciers erodes rock. (3 marks)
-abrasion – rub, scour or scrape rock or soil by rocks carried by the glacier…striations (scratches)
- glacial plucking – water seeps into the bedrock, freezes, the glacier plucks the rocks leaving holes
-weight – hills, rock outcrops, ridges are ploughed out of the way by the weight and power of the ice
5. Explain two ways continental glaciers deposit materials. (2 marks)
-ice…kettles, moraines, drumlins
-water…sand plains, clay plains, outwash, spillways
6. Where do you find alpine glaciation?(1 mark)
-in mountains..
7. What is a cirque and how is it formed? (1 mark)
-bowl-shaped depression made from glacial ice moving outwards reoding the sides, bottom and back
of the mountain.
8. How deep is the deepest known permafrost in Canada? (1 mark)
-700 m.
9. What does a periglacial landscape look like? (1 mark)
-
dotted with many small lakes, ponds, and swamps occupying shallow depressions amid low,
rolling hills.
10. Since water molecules essentially stay in the same place in the water, what is
actually moving in a wave?
a.
Energy
11. As a wave reaches a shallowing bottom, waves lean over the top and some of
them eventually break. What is the cause of the top of the wave leaning over the
top of the bottom?
a.
Friction along the bottom slows the water while on the top, the wave keeps going.
12. Briefly explain the process of tides? How are the formed? What erosion do they
cause?
a.
Gravitational attraction of the moon and centrifugal force of the earth-moon system