Valley glacier
Also called: Mountain glacier, Alpine glacier · Topic: Landforms and their Evolution: Rivers, Groundwater, Glaciers, Waves and Wind · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 6 "Landforms and their Evolution"
Meaning
A valley glacier is a long tongue of ice that flows down a mountain valley. It starts in cirques or snowfields high up and moves slowly downhill under gravity. As it moves, it carves the valley into a deep U-shaped trough. Its lower end is called the snout, and meltwater streams flow out from it there. Many Indian rivers are fed by valley glaciers.
Example
The Siachen glacier in the Karakoram is about 76 km long. It is one of the longest glaciers outside the polar regions. Valley glaciers are also found in the Himalaya of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
Don't confuse with
- Continental glacier: a vast ice sheet that buries the land whatever its shape, as in Antarctica. A valley glacier stays within a mountain valley.
Related concepts
- Glacier
- Continental glacier
- Plucking
- Cirque
- Tarn
- Horn
- Arete
- U-shaped valley
- Hanging valley
- Truncated spur