Glacial Processes Lab
Ice is a slow but powerful sculptor. See how glaciers pluck and grind out the corries and U-shaped valleys of upland Britain, and learn to tell an erosional landform from a depositional one.
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Ice, the slow sculptor 🏔️
Thousands of years ago, thick **glaciers** covered the uplands of Britain. As the ice crept downhill it carved out the dramatic peaks, ridges and valleys we see today. This lab looks at how glaciers **erode**, **transport** and **deposit** rock, and at the landforms they leave behind in places such as the **Lake District**.
The language of ice 🔑
Four ideas run through this module:
How freeze-thaw works 🧊
An interactive activity.
Name the process 🪨
Rock fragments frozen into the base of a glacier scrape and smooth the valley floor as the ice moves over it. What is this process called?
- Abrasion
- Plucking
- Freeze-thaw weathering
- Deposition
Two families of landform ⚖️
Glaciers both wear the land away and dump material. The landforms differ in how they form and where they are found.
Match each erosional landform 🥣
- Corrie
- Arete
- Glacial trough
- Tarn
- An armchair-shaped hollow where a glacier began
- A knife-edge ridge between two corries
- A wide, steep-sided U-shaped valley
- A small lake left in a corrie hollow
Case study: the Lake District 🏞️
The **Lake District** is a distinctive UK glaciated upland landscape. Ice once carved its corries, knife-edge ridges and deep U-shaped valleys, many now filled by long ribbon lakes. Its dramatic scenery makes it significant for water supply, hill farming and tourism, and those competing uses shape how the landscape is looked after today.
Spot the erosional landforms ✅
Select the TWO erosional landforms.
- A corrie
- An arete
- A drumlin
- A terminal moraine
Match each depositional landform 🧱
- Ground moraine
- Terminal moraine
- Drumlin
- Crag and tail
- Material spread out beneath the glacier
- A ridge of material at the glacier's furthest point
- A smooth egg-shaped mound of till
- A resistant rock with a tail of softer material behind it
Glacial processes in words 🧩
As a glacier moves it erodes by _____, freezing onto and pulling away loose rock, and by _____, grinding the valley with embedded fragments. High in the uplands it carves an armchair hollow called a _____. Lower down, when the ice melts, it drops material known as _____. A valley widened by ice has a _____-shaped cross-section.
Where would you find them? 📍
Where would you expect to find depositional landforms such as moraines and drumlins?
- On gentler, lower ground where the ice melted
- On the steepest, highest mountain peaks
- Only deep beneath the sea
- Inside the corries near the summits
Spot the true statements 🖍️
An interactive activity.
Name that landform 🧭
An interactive activity.
How a corrie forms ✍️
An interactive activity.