Nivation

Nivation is a collective name for the different processes that occur under a snow patch. One of them are the alternative freeze and thaw by which fallen snow gets converted into mass of ice or Névé, hence the term, nivation. The term glacier is applied only when the ice has accumulated enough for the mass to reach the moving stage. [1]

Nivation has nowadays come to include various subprocesses related to snow patches which may be immobile or semi-permanent. These sub-processes include erosion (if any) or initiation of erosion, weathering, meltwater flow from beneath the snowpatch etc.

Freeze-thaw action and possibly chemical weathering, operating under the snow, the weathered particles are moved downslope by the meltwater and also by solifluction. Over some time, this leads to the formation of nivation hollows which, when enlarged, can be the beginnings of a corrie (cirque).

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