How do glaciers erode?

Answer 1

As glaciers move over any earth surface, they carry rocks, stones and boulders with them. These are at the bottom of the glacier under very high pressures. As the glacier moves it is this carried material that grinds away at the mountain underneath. This is what causes the errosion.

Answer 2

The vast ice scrapes along the stone sides of the mountains, removing a pebble here, a stone there, the occasional boulder, and so forth. The pressure of the ice encourages this by pressing the scraping surface of the bottom and side ice firmly against the mountain surface.

Have you ever seen a cheese grater? Imagine using that with very little pressure against a very hard cheese. Not much is scraped / grated off. Now, as with the vast weight of the ice, use a lot more force when sliding it against the cheese (or vice versa, depending on the type of cheese grater). Far more is scraped off.

Answer 3

Glaciers are actually moving "rivers" of ice. They aren't fast, but their great weight and the lateral force they apply across a landscape act to "scour" that surface. Rocks and other solid materials carried along will be part of the abrasive effect of the glacier, and nothing will resist it as gravity drags it down. This is the basis of the power of a glacier to shape terrain, and it's easy to see how and why this happens by just thinking through the physics. Grab a bunch of sand, gravel and assorted rocks, press then against a surface with a few thousand tons of force, and then drag the abrasive along apace. A link can be found below.

Answer 4

because it grinds and scrapes the ground and picks up rocks and pebbles. Once the glacier reaches the bottom of the mountain, it is warm enough for it to melt and the rocks and pebbles are deposited there.

Answer 5

A glacier's weight, combined with slow movements can drastically change the landscape. How a glacier can change land is by over several years it can drag broken rocks and soil debris by the ice seeping into the cracks and over time, becomes "one" with the glacier because of repeating melting and freezing. So if the glacier takes the rocks away from one land and places it in another, the lands can either have repeating rocky-landscape and another with a shallow-like land.

There are two ways for a glacier to shape the land, which is through plucking, and abrasion.

Plucking usually takes place at the base of the glacier, where water from the glacier seeps into the soil and rocks openings, it freezes, and the glacier pulls it along; breaking up and pulling rocks with it.

Abrasion usually has the sand-papering type of effect. This means that the rocks.. if picked up, they crash against other rocks at the sides of the glacier, breaking them up.

Answer 6

Glaciers erode by a combination of processes including plucking, abrasion, freeze-thaw weathering, and meltwater erosion. Plucking occurs when the glacier freezes onto and plucks rocks from the ground. Abrasion happens as the glacier moves and grinds against the bedrock, wearing it down over time. Freeze-thaw weathering happens when water seeps into cracks in rocks, freezes, expands, and breaks the rock apart. Meltwater erosion refers to water flowing under or from the glacier that carries sediment and debris, further shaping the landscape.

Answer 7

They cause abrasion to the rock as it moves.

Answer 8

when the glaciers move across the land they pick up sediment that is called pulcking. as the glaciers move the sediment scrapes the land causing erosion

Answer 9

They carry rocks in their bases that scrape the bedrock away.