Nothing Is Cooler Than a Glacier Quiz

Answer: Accretion

A glacier's life depends on many factors. First is a steady supply of snow, which is referred to as accumulation. The snow becomes compacted into ice crystals, which can become quite large. Under its own weight, the glacier begins to slide...to move. Glaciers may look like they are just sitting there, but all of them move.

They have been called "Rivers of Ice". The equilibrium line is the place on a glacier where gain (from snow) and loss (from melting, vaporization and calving) are equal. Ablation simply means the loss of mass from a glacier. Accretion is a term used in biology, geology, and astronomy, but not in reference to glaciers.

Answer: Antarctica or Greenland

Of the many forms that Earth's ice can take, ice sheets are the largest. They are really enormous glaciers, moving as all glaciers must, but outward in all directions instead of down a mountain as valley glaciers do. Ice sheets, like all glaciers, form only over land masses, so the mass of ice at the North Pole is not a glacial ice sheet but rather what is known as "sea ice" or "pack ice". During the Earth's Ice Ages, massive ice sheets covered much of the planet's land masses, but today ice sheets are found only in Greenland and Antarctica. Iceland's smaller glacial ice cover is called an "ice cap".

Answer: False

The difference here is one of size. Antarctica is the glacial winner, of course, with almost twelve million square kilometers of the cold stuff, but
For a look at where the glaciers are, see http://nsidc.org/glaciers/questions/located.html
and
http://users.aber.ac.uk/jes3/background_info_on_glaciers.htm

Answer: Most North Atlantic icebergs have calved from glaciers in Canada and Iceland

Nearly all North Atlantic icebergs calve (break off) from Greenland's huge ice sheet.

Iceberg B15, at 11,000 square kilometers, calved from the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000 and broke in half in 2002. For an excellent discussion of icebergs, including how they are named and how they can affect the planet's ecology, please see http://www.solcomhouse.com/iceberg.htm.

"[Siachen] glacier, at a height of 20,000 feet or 6,000 meters-plus above sea-level, has been the site of a bitter struggle over boundary demarcation. [India and Pakistan] spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on stationing troops there. Many more soldiers have died at Siachen from the cold than from (frequently traded) gunshots."
(From http://www.antiwar.com/bidwai/?articleid=3675)

Answer: Crevasse: An open fissure in a glacier's surface

All glacier explorers must be on constant alert for crevasses. Most dangerous are the ones that are covered with a thin layer of snow.

A drumlin is a hill formed by debris pushed by a glacier.
Firn is rounded, well-bonded snow that is older than one year.
A serac is an isolated block of ice that is formed where the glacier surface is fractured.

(definitions from http://nsidc.org/glaciers/glossary)

Answer: Blue, because it is so dense it absorbs the rest of the light spectrum

There is a phenomenon called "red algae" that sometimes makes glaciers red, but most of them are a stunning, almost unearthly deep blue color. Retreating or melting glaciers may look dirty at times, a phenomenon discussed in this article: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=97550&page=1

(Famous chef Emeril Lagasse invented a drink called the "Blue Glacier Martini", but that's another quiz entirely...)

Answer: All of them

Glacial forces are not to be underestimated. All that moving ice can gouge out a valley (which becomes a fjord when flooded), create a huge lake or five, or grind away at a mountain until only a pointed "horn" remains.

Answer: True

Yes, and let's not think that this would open up Antarctica for farming...much of its landmass is a kilometer or more below sea level because of the weight of its ice sheet, and thus would be flooded anyway along with Venice, Disney World, Yankee Stadium and lots of other fun places.

Answer: During most of the last billion years, the Earth was largely covered with ice

Our planet has undergone repeated cycles of warming and cooling. Many factors play a part in this, including but not limited to the position of the continents, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the position of the Earth's orbit. At the greatest extent of glaciation, probably no more than 30-40% of the Earth's surface was ice-covered, but that, of course, was enough to profoundly affect the planet.

The "Little Ice Age" was "characterized by harsh winters, shorter growing seasons, and a drier climate. The decline in global temperatures was a modest 1/2° C, but the effects of this global cooling cycle were more pronounced in the higher latitudes. The Little Ice Age has been blamed for a host of human suffering including crop failures like the "Irish Potato Famine" and the demise of the medieval Viking colonies in Greenland."
(http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html)

And here's one more thought, from the Illinois State Museum: "If 'ice age' is used to refer to long, generally cool, intervals during which glaciers advance and retreat, we are still in one today. Our modern climate represents a very short, warm period between glacial advances."

Answer: Most of the world's glaciers are growing so rapidly that they pose a threat to inhabited areas

As many if not most of the world's glaciers are retreating, not advancing, there is great concern that some of the great ice shelves of Antarctica may melt and raise the world's sea levels.