 Monster Bulldozers Scour Continent Many areas of the Arctic have been shaped by repeated glaciations. In the North American and western Eurasian Arctic, ice sheets have scoured the landscape like giant bulldozers, tearing away topsoil and broken rock. The ice at the bottom of a glacier is usually loaded with debris, including large rocks. Melt water seeps into cracks in the underlying bedrock and then refreezes. As the ice moves forward, chunks of rock are plucked from the bedrock and dragged along on the bottom of the ice. The glacier acts like a gigantic piece of sandpaper, eroding, scraping and grinding down the rock. Striations are grooves or scratches left behind in the bedrock (picture) after a glacier has passed over it, and geologists use these markings to determine the direction that the ice took.
Arctic: Library and Links Glaciers: Library and Links Ice Age Links A Continent Under Ice The Last Great Ice Age - a Weighty Problem Arctic Maps |
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DICTIONARY: Just "double-click" any unlinked word on this page for the definition from Merriam-Webster's Student Electronic Dictionary at Word Central. |
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ARCTIC LIBRARY & GLOSSARY: Check this section for an index of the rest of the things you really need to know about the Arctic. |
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ARCTIC MAPS & WEATHER REPORTS: Maps of the Northwest Passage, explorers' routes, iceberg sources, Nunavut, the Arctic by treeline, temperature... |
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ARCTIC LINKS: Even more information! Links to sites related to the Arctic and "Iceberg: the Story of the Throps and the Squallhoots". |
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GUIDE TO ARCTIC SUNRISE & SUNSET: How much sunlight or darkness is there in the Arctic on each day of the year? |
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