Glaciology is the survey of glaciers, or thomas more usually a learn of ice and natural phenomena that involve ice. A word glacier is from either a Latin glacies, meaning ice or frost.

Glaciology is an interdisciplinary earth science that integrates geology, climatology, meteorology, hydrology, biology, and ecology. the discipline as well forms a a share of physical geography. A presence of ice in Mars and Europa brings in an extraterrestrial being component to the field.

Overview
Areas of learn in glaciology include glacial history & a reconstructiin of retiring glaciation system, results of glaciers on climate & a other way around, a kinetics of ice movement, a contributions of glaciers to erosion & morphology, lifeforms that sleep in the ice, then forth.

Unsurprisingly, glaciology is one of a key areas supported by polar locate.

Types
There are deuce general categories of glaciation which glaciologists distinguish: alpine glaciation, accumulations or even "rivers of ice" confined to vale; & continental glaciation, unrestricted accumulations which another time covered lot of the northern continents.

Alpine - ice flows down a valley of mountainous areas & forms an apron of moving ice onto the plains in the image below. Alpine glaciers tend to produce a topography more rugged. Continental - an ice sheet found just around within high latitudes (Greenland/Antarctica), hundreds to thousands of square kilometre wide & thousands of meters midst. These tend to smooth a landscape.

Zones of glaciers
Accumulation Wastage

Movement
; Ablation : wastage through evaporation & melting ; Bergshrund : crevasse formed at a head of a glacier, in which it breaks out of the mountain face.

; Fracture (30-60m heavy) : toffy fracturing creates crevasses due to central a portion of glacier moving sooner than sides/floor. ; Flow : thin plastic due to extreme pressure. ; Plucking/Quarrying : moving glacier picks higher big prevent of stone & transports the babies, occasionally as much as the mile. ; Cwm : bowl shaped depression in which a crystalised began & has currently melted away. ; Tarn : flow of any stream that forms in the corrie floor ; Horn : steeple of rock formed per headward erosion of the ring of cwm around one mountain ; Arěte : the total of corrie gnaw into the ridge from either paired sides (turn into jagged)

Glacial Deposits
Stratified
; Outwash sand/gravel : from either front of glaciers, noticed in the plain ; Kettles : prevent of stagnant ice leaves the depression or even pit ; Eskers : steep sided ridges of gravel/sand, even from either streams, lakes, and wells throughout heading under stagnant ice ; Kames : bedded drift builds higher moo steep hills ; Varves : thin sedimentary beds (harsh to ticket), summertime deposits extra poop & in the wintertime, less.

Unstratified
; Till-unsorted : (glacial flour to boulders) deposited by receding/advancing glaciers, forming moraines, & drumlines ; Moraines : (Terminal) poop deposited at a prevent; (Ground) lesson deposited when glacier thawing; (lateral) material deposited along a sides. ; Drumlins : smooth longer hills composed of till.