Mountains & Glaciers

A glacier is a perennial mass of ice which moves over land. A glacier forms in locations where the mass accumulation of snow and ice exceeds ablation over many years. The word glacier comes from French via the Vulgar Latin glacia, and ultimately from Latin glacies meaning ice.The corresponding area of study is called glaciology.

Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth, and is second only to oceans as the largest reservoir of total water. Glaciers cover vast areas of the polar regions and are found in mountain ranges of every continent including Australasia (there are glaciers in New Zealand). In the tropics glaciers are restricted to the highest mountains. The processes and landforms caused by glaciers and related to them are referred to as glacial. The process of glacier growth and establishment is called glaciation. Glaciers are indicators of climate and are important to world water resources and sea level variation.