Flashcards: Glaciology

A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances.

A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris (soil and rock) that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions on Earth (i.e. a past glacial maximum), through geomorphological processes.

Sea ice arises as seawater freezes.

Melt ponds are pools of open water that form on sea ice in the warmer months of spring and summer.

The Cryogenian (pronunciation: /kraɪoʊˈdʒɛniən/, from Greek cryos "cold" and genesis "birth") is a geologic period that lasted from 720 to 635 million years ago.

Geologically, a fjord or fiord (English pronunciation: /ˈfjɔːrd/ or /fiˈɔːrd/) is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by glacial erosion.

Frost is the coating or deposit of ice that may form in humid air in cold conditions, usually overnight.

Ice is water frozen into a solid state.

Loess (pronunciation: /ˈloʊ.əs/, /ˈlʌs/, /ˈlɛs/, or UK /ˈlɜːrs/; from German Löss [lœs]) is a clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust.

A giant's kettle, also known as a giant's cauldron or pothole, is a cavity or hole which appears to have been drilled in the surrounding rocks by eddying currents of water bearing stones, gravel, and other detrital matter.

An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers.

Deglaciation, describes the transition from full glacial conditions during ice ages, to warm interglacials, characterized by global warming and sea level rise due to change in continental ice volume (IPCC AR5).

Firn (/fɪrn/; from Swiss German firn "last year's", cognate with before) is partially compacted névé, a type of snow that has been left over from past seasons and has been recrystallized into a substance denser than névé.

A pingo, also called a hydrolaccolith, is a mound of earth-covered ice found in the Arctic and subarctic that can reach up to 70 metres (230 ft) in height and up to 600 m (2,000 ft) in diameter.

An ice lens or ice lenses are formed when moisture, diffused within soil or rock, accumulates in a localized zone.

Periglaciation (adjective: "periglacial," also referring to places at the edges of glacial areas) describes geomorphic processes that result from seasonal thawing of snow in areas of permafrost, the runoff from which refreezes in ice wedges and other structures.

Crucial to the survival of a glacier is its mass balance or surface mass balance (SMB), the difference between accumulation and ablation (sublimation and melting).

Paraglacial means unstable conditions caused by a significant relaxation time in processes and geomorphic patterns following glacial climates.

The glacial history of Minnesota is most defined since the onset of the last glacial period, which ended some 10,000 years ago.

Ice segregation is the geological phenomenon produced by the formation of ice lenses, which induce erosion when moisture, diffused within soil or rock, accumulates in a localized zone.

Shelf ice can refer to the ice that forms when a portion of a lake surface freezes.

Meltwater is water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glacial ice, tabular icebergs and ice shelves over oceans.

Frost heaving (or a frost heave) is an upwards swelling of soil during freezing conditions caused by an increasing presence of ice as it grows towards the surface, upwards from the depth in the soil where freezing temperatures have penetrated into the soil (the freezing front or freezing boundary).

Throughout the history of the Earth, the planet's climate has been fluctuating between two dominant climate states: the greenhouse earth and the icehouse earth.

The frost line—also known as frost depth or freezing depth—is most commonly the depth to which the groundwater in soil is expected to freeze.

Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from oxygen isotope data reflecting changes in temperature derived from data from deep sea core samples.