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Lessons  10-11






        Read the following information then write a one A4 page newspaper on glaciers, writing
        headlines and short pieces of information, with illustrations, on a separate sheet or on a
        computer.


           Glaciers are formed when enormous amounts of snow fall and pack down to form ice.

           The cutting power of the ice becomes very powerful as it slowly moves down a valley or
          hillside.


           Moving rivers of ice are called glaciers. They move at different speeds. In the Alps

          they often take three years to move one metre but in Greenland twenty metres a day is
           common.


           Glaciers begin in a hollow high up in a valley and they gouge out the rock. After the ice
          melts this high basin shape, or corrie, is left often containing a small lake. One such
           hollow can be seen on Helvellyn in Cumbria.


          Gravity causes the weight of ice to slide down a valley high up on a mountain. Glaciers

           cut roughly gouging out a U-shaped valley.


           Sometimes the glaciers cut away at the hillside in parallel valleys so that the hill
          separating them becomes so thin and narrow that it is called an arête. An example is

           Striding Edge on Helvellyn.


                                                                  A U-shaped valley


        corrie                                                              glacier







                                                                                        Thousands of
          A hanging valley is a small side valley cut by smaller glaciers.              years ago there
                                                                                        was an ice age

             Moraines are lines of rocks and stones carried down the                    when a quarter
             mountains by glaciers.                                                     of the earth was
                                                                                        covered in ice.
                                         (God's Amazing Landscapes)          48
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