Hooray for Glacier Detectives!
With all the knowledge you've gained, you can now answer these questions about glaciers. Click on the answer you think is correct to find out if you're right.
1. Why is ice blue?
The ice worms color the ice with blue crayons.The compact glacial ice strongly reflects blue light.
The ice is reflecting the blue sky.
Photo by Hambrey
Animation by Dorothy Hall
2. What is happening to this glacier?
The glacier is calving and sending a big wave across the river.Salmon are making waves.
Ice worms are cleaning house in the glacier and getting rid of unwanted ice.
3. The Vedretta di Fellario Orientale Glacier in the Italian Alps clearly shows a line where snow is changing to glacier ice.
What is this line called?
The 60 yard line.
A crevasse line.
Italian Alps
Photo by Alean
4. The snout of Glacier d'Otemma in the Valais of Switzerland shows the signs of retreating. What is a sign of retreating?
The glacier looks larger and is starting to flow down the mountain.It's thinning at the terminus and showing remaining silt.
An airplane dumped twenty pounds of dirt on the glacier.
Glacier d'Otemma
Photo by Hambrey
Kennicott Glacier
Photo by Alaska Geographic Society
5. There is a nunatak in this picture. How did it get there?
It slid down the mountain with the glacier.
It was there before the glacier flowed down the mountain.
Large ice worms built the nunatak last year.
Illustration by Erica Herbert
6. What are these scientists doing on this ice shelf off Alaska?
Trying to find Miner Ed
Drilling for oil
Taking ice core samples
Glacial Features
Photo by McMillian
7. Which features are visible in this photo taken in the Brooks range?
Tarn.
Cirque.
Horn.
Mosquitos.
All of the above.
Photo by Hambrey
8. What are these stripes in the glacier ice?
The ice worms built a freeway with several lanes.
It's a moraine that tipped over sideways.
Foliations caused by the process of snow changing to glacier ice.
Glacial Features
Photo by Derek Fordham
9. This is a meltwater stream emerging from a tunnel under a glacier. What's in the water?
Nothing; it's pure drinking water.
Pineapple and oranges
The stream contains silt and organic matter.
Glacial Features
Photo by Derek Fordham
10. What is this?
The ice worms did an abstract painting of a rainbow!
An interferogram of the Bagley Icefield showing color bands like a series of parallel moving sidewalks, each moving slightly faster than its neighbor as you go from the edge towards the center.
Long ago, the wooly mammoths found a place where the northern lights shine forth from deep inside an ancient glacier. Sometimes the colors escape and radiate across the north country.
