What is the difference between a glacier ice sheet and sea ice?
The most basic difference is that sea ice forms from salty ocean water, whereas icebergs, glaciers, and lake ice form from fresh water or snow. Sea ice grows, forms, and melts strictly in the ocean. Glaciers are considered land ice, and icebergs are chunks of ice that break off of glaciers and fall into the ocean.
What are the similarities and differences between glaciers and continental glaciers?
valley glaciers is a glacier usually originating in a cirque at a valley head and flowing downward between the walls of a valley. A continental glacier is covers many miles covering the continent. a rock that is moved on the Earth’s surface by water, wind, ice or gravity.
What is the difference between icebergs and glaciers?
Glaciers are located in the Arctic and Antarctica, with the largest glaciers appearing in Antarctica. Icebergs, on the other hand, are smaller pieces of ice that have broken off (or calved) from glaciers and now drift with the ocean currents.
What are the major similarities and differences between Alpine glaciers continental glaciers and ice caps?
Glaciers are ice that moves. Continental glaciers form in a central location with ice moving outward in all directions. Alpine glaciers form in high mountains and travel through valleys. Ice caps cover large areas.
How are continental glaciers and valley glaciers similar?
They are both made up of pressured snow and ice. Continental Glaciers are much larger and cover huge area and Valley Glaciers are long, narrow and on top of high mountains.
What do glaciers and icebergs have in common?
Icebergs and glaciers are both enormous masses of snow, built up over the years through natural processes. Glaciers are formed by continual deposition of snow at a place where it does not melt. When a chunk of this glacier breaks off and floats in the water, it is known as an iceberg.
What is difference between ice and snow?
Key Difference: Ice is the solid form of water. It is obtained by freezing water. On the other hand, snow is a frozen precipitation that is formed when atmospheric water vapor freezes under extremely cold temperatures. Snow is made up of ice crystals known as snow flakes.
Are ice sheets freshwater?
Ice sheets contain about 99% of the freshwater on Earth, and are sometimes called continental glaciers. As ice sheets extend to the coast and over the ocean, they become ice shelves.
In which way are glaciers and rivers similar?
Glaciers are called “rivers of ice.” Just like rivers, glaciers have fall lines where the bed of the glacier gets narrow or descends rapidly. Ice flows down the icefall just like water falls down a waterfall.
How big was the iceberg that hit the Titanic?
The exact size of the iceberg will probably never be known but, according to early newspaper reports the height and length of the iceberg was approximated at 50 to 100 feet high and 200 to 400 feet long.
What is the difference between a glacier and an ice shelf?
While glaciers are defined as large sheets of ice and snow on land, ice shelves are technically part of the ocean. …
What is the difference between ice and glacier?
Basically, glaciers originate on land, and ice floes form in open water and are a form of sea ice. Glaciers that extend in continuous sheets and cover a large landmass, such as Antarctica or Greenland, are called ice sheets.
What are ice sheets and glaciers?
Glaciers and Ice Sheets. Glaciers and ice sheets are perennial accumulations of ice and snow that flow downslope, slowly, due to their own weight. These terrestrial (land-based) ice masses often are classified by size as either glaciers, ice caps, or ice sheets.
What are continental ice sheets?
Ice sheet. An ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km 2 (19,000 sq mi).
What is an ice cap glacier?
An ice cap is a glacier, a thick layer of ice and snow , that covers fewer than 50,000 square kilometers (19,000 square miles). Glacial ice covering more than 50,000 square kilometers (19,000 square miles) is called an ice sheet. An interconnected series of ice caps and glaciers is called an ice field. Ice caps and ice fields are often punctuated by nunataks.