Page 11 - (DK) I Can’t Believe It! 2

STRANGE BUT TRUE! 9

FAST FACTS

Ground
snow
The mountains on Snowflakes
either side of the glacier
stand thousands of feet
high, which helps to Glacier ice
convey the scale of Granular
this icy expanse. ice
Firn
In cold regions, snow does not
melt; it piles up in layers. The
weight squeezes the snow beneath,
forming grains of ice that gradually
pack together until they become
Piedmont glaciers are firn—a middle stage between snow
fan-shaped, and often and glacier ice. In a process that
almost completely can take centuries, the air is
symmetrical. squeezed out and the firn turns
to dense glacier ice.

SILVER-TONGUED GLACIER

Glaciers are masses of land-based ice The Erebus Ice Tongue in Antarctica is
that develop at the poles or in areas of high a tongue-like projection extending from
altitude. There are several different types, the Erebus glacier. Stretching for 7 miles
but all are made from layers of snow and (11 km), parts of the icy tongue have been
move slowly under their own immense known to splinter off into the sea, where
weight. Elephant Foot Glacier is a piedmont they become icebergs.
glacier, formed when the ice from a steep
valley glacier spills over an open plain.

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