Glaciers In the World, Types of Glaciers, How Glaciers Formed, Causes Of Glaciers Melting, Greenland glaciers, Glaciers In Himalaya:- Glaciers are comprised of fallen snow that, over several years, compresses into large, thickened ice masses.

Types of Glaciers
Types of Glaciers

Glaciers In The World | And Causes Of Glaciers Melting

The Process of Making Glacier form when snow remains in one area long enough to transform into ice. What makes glaciers distinct is its capability to circulation. Due to large mass, flow like very sluggish rivers. Some glaciers are as little as football fields, while others grow to be dozens or even numerous kilometers long.


  1. The glacier that extends in constant sheets, moving outward in all directions, are called ice sheets if they are the size of Antarctica or Greenland and ice caps if they are smaller sized;
  2. Restricted within a course that directs the ice movement are called mountain glacier; and
  3. The glacier that spread out on the level ground or on the ocean at the foot of glaciated regions is called piedmont glacier or ice shelves, respectively.

How glaciers formed.

Glacier starts to form when snow stays in the very same area year-round, where enough snow accumulates to change into ice. Each year, new layers of snow bury and compress the previous layers.

This compression forces the snow to re-crystallize, forming grains comparable in shapes and size to grains of sugar. Gradually the grains grow larger and the air pockets between the grains get smaller sized, triggering the snow to slowly compact and boost in density.

After about a year, the snow turns into firn– an intermediate state in between snow and glacier ice. At this point, it is about two-thirds as dense as water. With time, bigger ice crystals end up being so compressed that any air pockets in between them are really tiny.

In very old glacier ice, crystals can reach several inches in length. For a lot of glacier, this procedure takes more than a hundred years.

Glaciers In the World
How Glaciers Formed
How Glaciers Formed

Source National Snow And Ice Data Center

Types of glaciers

Mountain glaciers

These glaciers establish in high mountainous regions, frequently draining of icefields that span numerous peaks or even a range of mountains.

The biggest mountain glacier is discovered in Arctic Canada, Alaska, the Andes in South America, and the Himalaya in Asia.

Valley glaciers.

Commonly stemming from mountain glacier or icefields, this glacier spill down valleys, looking just like giant tongues. Valley glacier might be long, typically streaming down beyond the snow line, sometimes reaching water level.

Tidewater glaciers.

As the name suggests, these are valley glaciers that stream far enough to reach out into the sea. In some locations, tidewater glacier supply breeding habitats for seals. Tidewater glaciers are accountable for calving many little icebergs, which although not as enforcing as Antarctic icebergs, can still posture issues for shipping lanes.

Piedmont glaciers.

Piedmont glaciers take place when high valley glaciers spill into relatively flat plains, where they spread out into bulb-like lobes. Malaspina Glacier in Alaska is one of the most popular examples of this type of glacier and is the largest piedmont glacier worldwide. Spilling out of the Seward Icefield, Malaspina Glacier covers about 3,900 square kilometers (1,500 square miles) as it spreads out across the coastal plain.

Melting, Greenland glaciers
Melting, Greenland Glaciers

Hanging glaciers.

When a significant valley glacier system retreats and thins, in some cases the tributary glacier is left in smaller valleys high above the shrunken main glacier surface area. This is called a hanging glacier. If the entire system has melted and disappeared, the empty high valleys are called hanging valleys.

Cirque glaciers.

Cirque glaciers are named for the bowl-like hollows they inhabit, which are called cirques. Generally, they are found high on mountainsides and tend to be wide instead of long.

Ice aprons.

This little, steep glacier clings to high mountainsides. Like cirque glaciers they are often larger than they are long. Ice aprons prevail in the Alps and in New Zealand, where they typically cause avalanches due to the high inclines they inhabit.

Rock glaciers.

Rock glaciers are mixes of ice and rock. Although this glacier has comparable shapes and motions as a regular glacier, their ice might be confined to the glacier core, or may merely fill spaces between rocks. Rock glaciers may form when frozen ground creeps downslope. They might also collect ice, snow, and rocks through avalanches or landslides.


Ice caps are miniature ice sheets, covering less than 50,000 square kilometers (19,305 square miles). They form mostly in polar and sub-polar regions and are smaller than continental-scale ice sheets.


Icefields are similar to ice caps, except that their circulation is influenced by the underlying topography, and they are usually smaller than ice caps.

Ice streams.

Ice streams are large ribbon-like glacier set within an ice sheet– they are bordered by ice that is streaming more slowly, instead of by rock outcrop or range of mountains.

These huge masses of flowing ice are frequently really sensitive to modifications such as the loss of ice shelves at their terminus or changing amounts of water streaming underneath them. The Antarctic ice sheet has lots of ice streams.

Ice sheets.

Found now just in Antarctica and Greenland, ice sheets are massive continental masses of glacial ice and snow expanding over 50,000 square kilometers (19,305 square miles).

The ice sheet on Antarctica is over 4.7 kilometers (3 miles) thick in some locations, covering nearly all of the land includes except the Transantarctic Mountains, which extend above the ice. Another example is the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Ice shelves.

Ice shelves happen when ice sheets cross the sea and float on the water. They vary from a couple of hundred meters to over 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) in density. Ice racks surround the majority of the Antarctic continent.

Read Environmental Pollution Causes