GY4027

Topic 6: Glacial Landscapes

This topic, we will look at landscapes carved by glaciers.

By the end of this topic you should be able to:

1. Explain the main processes operating in glacial landscapes
2. Describe the general properties of glacial sediments
3. Describe the formation of common glacial geomorphological features

Lecture

Lecture slides: L6 Glacial Landscapes

Reading

Suggested Textbook

I suggest reading Chapter Ten and Chapter Eleven of Huggett, R. (2017) Fundamentals of Geomorphology, 4th Edition. Routledge, London.

Describe the formation of common glacial geomorphological features

Available online.

Academic papers

• Kirkbride, M. and Matthews, D. 1997. The Role of Fluvial and Glacial Erosion in Landscape Evolution: The Ben Ohau Range, New Zealand. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 22, 317–327. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-9837(199703)22:3%3C317::AID-ESP760%3E3.0.CO;2-I

This is a nice example of the kind of analysis geomorphologists do on glacial landscapes - in particular, here, on a New Zealand landscape with ongoing uplift. Worth a read.

Optional additional reading

This paper is quite long and goes far more into physics than is useful for you, but it also gives a nice review of the historic development of understanding of how glaciers flow.

• Fowler, A.C. 2024 Glacier and ice sheet flow. Geophysical & Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics 118, 251–386. 10.1080/03091929.2024.2346588