How are glaciers formed and how are glaciers formed?

Glaciers are a form of water that is transformed by snow through a series of changes. To form a glacier, there must first be a certain amount of solid precipitation, including snow, fog, hail, etc. Without enough solid precipitation as a "raw material", it is equivalent to "cooking without rice", and it cannot form a glacier at all.

Glaciers exist in extreme cold places. The Antarctic and Arctic of Earth are bitterly cold all year round, and in other parts of the world, glaciers can only form on high-altitude mountains. We know that the higher you go, the lower the temperature, and when the altitude exceeds a certain altitude, the temperature will drop below 0, and the solid precipitation that falls can exist all year round.

This altitude is called the snow line by glaciologists.

On the island of Greenland, which is located in the Antarctic and Arctic circles, glaciers develop on a continent, so they are called continental glaciers. In other areas, glaciers can only develop in high mountains, so they are called mountain glaciers.

In the high mountains, glaciers can develop, and in addition to a certain altitude, the mountains are not too steep. If the mountain peaks are too steep, the snow will fall down the slope and will not form snow and form glaciers.

As soon as the snowflakes fall to the ground, they change, and as the external conditions and time change, the snowflakes will turn into spherical snow that completely loses its crystal characteristics, which is called granular snow, and this snow is the "raw material" of glaciers.

After the snow becomes granular snow, over time, the hardness of the granular snow and the tightness between them increases, large and small particles of snow are pressed against each other, tightly inlaid together, and the pores between them continue to shrink so that they disappear, the brightness and transparency of the snow layer gradually weaken, and some air is also enclosed in it, so that glacial ice is formed. Glacier ice is milky white when it first formed, and over time, the glacier ice becomes denser and harder, and the bubbles inside gradually decrease, slowly turning into crystal-like old glacier ice with a blue color.

Glacier ice is formed by gravity and slowly flowing down the slopes of mountains (at a very slow rate, of course).

In the high mountains, a large amount of snow accumulates, the snow does not melt all year round, the snow accumulates thicker and thicker, and the snow that is pressed down becomes granular snow, and finally into glacial ice, which moves downward and "flows" into the valley due to the gravitational pull of the earth.

Glaciers are mainly caused by the movement of snow and ice!

If you think of ice as water, you can understand that ice can flow, and it will become a glacier.

Glacier is a huge flowing solid, which is recrystallized and accumulated by snow in alpine areas to form huge glacial ice, which is mainly caused by gravity to flow glacier ice and become glaciers. Glaciation includes erosion, transport, accumulation and other effects, which create a lot of topography and form a variety of landforms in the areas that pass through glaciation. To form a glacier, a certain amount of solid precipitation is required, including snow, fog, hail, etc.

Glacier formation. What is the location and the main principle.

In Antarctica, the Arctic and other alpine regions, temperatures are quite low and the amount of snow that falls in a year far exceeds the amount of snow that melts. The snow will accumulate more and more, and the snow will become tighter and tighter. The snow melts during the day and freezes into ice crystals at night.

Ice crystals and snowflakes form white spherical crystals, which become grains of snow, and the grains of snow are merged and compacted to become blue and transparent ice. This type of ice has a slightly smaller specific gravity than ordinary ice and is called glacial ice. Glacier ice accumulates to a considerable thickness, and under the influence of gravity, it flows from high to low, so people call it glacier.

Glaciers flow more than 1 meter per day, and some can flow at speeds of up to 20 meters per day.

Glaciers are natural bodies of ice that persist on the surface for a long time and move on their own. It is formed by the accumulation of atmospheric solid precipitation over many years, and is formed by multi-year snow accumulation, compaction, recrystallization, refreezing and other ice-forming actions. It has a certain shape and layer, and has plasticity, under gravity and pressure, produces plastic flow and block sliding, and is an important freshwater resource on the surface.

Quaternary glaciers were the last great glacial period in the history of the Earth. In geological history, there have been periods of large-scale glacial activity with cold climates, known as ice ages, or ice ages for short. There have been three such glacial periods, namely the Late Precambrian, the Carboniferous Permian and the Quaternary.

When the Quaternary Ice Age came, the average annual temperature of the earth was 10 15 lower than now, more than 1 3 of the world's continents were covered by ice and snow, the glacier area reached 52 million square kilometers, the ice thickness was about 1000 meters, and the sea level dropped by 130 meters.

The formation of Antarctic glaciers was once full of life.

In Antarctica, the Arctic and other alpine regions, the amount of snow that falls in a year is much higher than the amount of snow that melts because the temperatures are quite low. The snow will accumulate more and more, and the snow will become tighter and tighter. The snow melts during the day and freezes into ice crystals at night.

Ice crystals and snowflakes form white spherical crystals, which become grains of snow, which are combined and compacted to become blue and transparent ice. This type of ice has a slightly smaller specific gravity than ordinary ice and is called glacial ice. Glacier ice accumulates to a considerable thickness and flows from high to low due to gravity, hence the name glacier.

Glaciers flow more than 1 metre per day, with individual velocities of up to 20 metres per day.

In the high latitudes and high mountains of the planet, the climate is unusually cold, and the snow does not melt for a long time, forming a blue transparent ice layer, that is, glacial ice. Under pressure and gravity, the ice moves slowly along the slope and gradually forms glaciers. To put it academically, its formation mainly goes through three stages: snow densification, glacial glaciation, and the movement of glacial ice.

Grain snowization is a prelude to glacier formation. Thousands of snowflakes fall to the ground to form new snow. If the fresh snow does not melt in spring, summer, or autumn, the water molecules in the unmelted snow will migrate from the tips and edges of the snow flakes to the recesses, and the snow crystals will gradually become rounded.

This process is called snowmelting. In this process, the snow gradually compacts, and after repeated melting, freezing, collision, and compaction, the number of crystals gradually decreases and the volume increases, and the pores between the ice crystals decrease, forming a neck-like connection, which is called densification. It is the intermediate link in the transition from snow to ice.

The process of grain snowing and compacting is carried out very quickly at a temperature close to the melting point; It is slow to proceed at lower temperatures.

When the density of snow particles reaches grams per cubic centimeter (new snow density grams per cubic centimeter), the process of snow melting becomes slow, and under the action of its own weight, the snow particles are further compacted or soaked by meltwater and then frozen, and the grains change their size and morphology, and there is directional growth. When its density reaches grams per cubic centimeter, the grains lose their air permeability and water permeability, becoming glacial ice. The accumulation of glaciers began.

It takes years to thousands of years for particles of snow to turn into glacial ice. When the glacier ice contains a lot of bubbles, it is milky white and is called grain snow ice. The snow ice is further compressed, the bubbles are compressed, the air is expelled, and it reforms into dense, transparent, bluish glacial ice.

Glacial ice is a large and irregular polycrystalline aggregate with a layered structure.

Glacier ice is plastic, and glaciers are formed when glacier ice moves down a hillside or valley under pressure and gravity. However, the speed at which glacial ice slides is very slow, which is directly related to the slope of the terrain. For example, the Rongbu Glacier on the north slope of Mount Everest has an annual flow rate of 117 meters; It is the glacier with the largest flow rate in China.

The same large glaciers of Mount Everest, some of which are almost immobile. The reason why glaciers move is that during movement, the size of ice crystals can reach more than 100 centimeters, and the voids contain water, which acts like lubricating oil under the influence of pressure and slope, causing the glacier to move downward.