Glacier Types

Ice Sheet: large regions of glacier ice occurring on land surfaces, with an area of at least 50,000 km². Ice sheets develop into ice shelves when they meet the intersection of land and ocean.

Ice Shelves: extensive blocks of glacier ice, originally formed on land, transported to the land-ocean interface. Ice shelves form over vast quantities of time, and are made up of pure water.

Iceberg: Regions of ice shelves or ice sheets that have broken off the main continental ice structure into the ocean.

Ice Cap: large regions of glacier ice occurring on land surfaces, with an area less than 50,000 km².

Icefield: An area of land surface that is covered with multiple connecting Ice Caps.

Ice Stream: areas of ice, from an ice sheet that have flowed further and faster than the surrounding continental ice structure. This process created rapidly moving water in the form of a stream.

Rock Glacier: occurs in regions of little snowfall. The glacier mass is made up of high quantities of rock material with discontinuous ice.

Surge-Type Glacier: a glacier with intense flow patterns with highly contrasting conditions. These glaciers go through rapid flow periods (1-3 years) and slow flow periods (10-100 years). The differential rates of flow between these two periods can be between ten to one thousand fold.

Cirque Glacier: glaciers that occupy wide, round, bowl-shaped zones in mountainous regions. These dipped landscapes act as a catchment for snowfall and avalanche debris. Cirque glaciers are often separated by an eroded ridge, called a Col and these glaciers frequently surround a rock peak called a Horn.

Hanging Glacier: wide glaciers that inhabit steep mountainous slopes, “hanging” onto the steep rock. These glaciers are hazardous as they trigger rockfall and avalanche events.

Outlet Glacier: an opening channel, rapidly moving glacier originating from a glacial dome of ice. These glaciers are large lobe shaped ice structures.

Temperate Glacier: glaciers that exist in temperate regions and have water and ice simultaneously present seasonally or annually.

Tidewater Glacier: glaciers that flow from valley regions to a large lake or ocean environment. Small icebergs break off from this type of glacier into the surrounding tide-influenced body of water.

Valley Glacier: glaciers that flow from ice sheets, icefields or mountain glaciers into a deep valley environment from gravitational pull. Often, these valley glaciers move ice material from land into the ocean. Valley glaciers are separated by sharp ridges, called Arêtes.

Piedmont Glacier: glaciers that form wide lobes as ice is transferred from high gradient valley settings to a low gradient field.