What Do Glaciers Do to Landforms?

Processes

• The movements of glaciers, combined with their weight, scrape the land around them, dislodging pieces of rock and minerals that are then carried along by the glacier. Water from the glacier seeps into cracks in the earth, freezes, expands and breaks up more rock to be carried. This is a process called plucking. The rocks carried by glaciers further scrape away rock in a process called scouring.

Formations

• Alpine glaciers, which form on the sides of mountains, can cut huge depressions out of the sides of the mountains they move away from, called cirques. At the bottom of these cirques are often found small depressions where water collects to form a new lake. When multiple cirques leave only a steep, pointed peak on a mountain, it is called a horn. Glaciers can also create valleys inland as well as fjords, long coastal valleys with steep sides and rounded bottoms.

Geography

• Landforms affected and created by glaciers can be found across the world. Yellowstone has vast glacial valleys, while Switzerland has the most famous horn, called the Matterhorn. The coasts of Norway are covered in fjords.