Glaciers & Ice Sheets

Glaciers transport rock material frozen into the ice. When the ice melts, it deposits this material, often forming mounds called moraines at the sides and end of the glacier.

The retreating Malaspina glacier, in Antarctica, shows many moraine ridges.

Boulder Clay: East Yorkshire coast

Today, continents like Greenland and Antarctica are almost entirely covered by ice sheets. Thousands of years ago, much bigger ice sheets covered much of northern Europe and North America .

As these ice sheets melted (about 10,000 years ago), they left parts of eastern England covered by boulder clay. Boulder clay is a mixture of clay (from finely ground and weathered rock), pebbles and boulders - some as large as a truck - that were carried along by the ice.

Glacial outwash, Glen Roy, Scotland

Deposits formed from melt water.

Melt-water streams, flowing from melting glaciers and ice sheets, also transports huge amounts of gravel, sand and mud which is later deposited to form glacial outwash plains.