The Taylor Glacier is an Antarctic glacier about 54 kilometers (34 miles) long, flowing from the plateau of Victoria Land into the western end of Taylor Valley. — Credit: Eli Duke/Flickr. Valley commonly originate from mountain glaciers or icefields, these glaciers spill down valleys, looking much like giant tongues.

What is a glacier? A glacier is an accumulation of ice and snow that slowly flows over land. At higher elevations, more snow typically falls than melts, adding to its mass. Eventually, the surplus of built-up ice begins to flow downhill. At lower elevations, there is usually a higher rate of melt or icebergs break off that removes ice mass.

The largest glacier, by area, is the Seller Glacier on the Antarctic Peninsula, measuring over 7,000 square kilometers (2,700 square miles). The largest ice crystals that make up a glacier can be as large as apples. However, there are many other ice masses on Earth that are much larger than the largest glacier.

valley glacier. a mountain glacier whose flow is confined by valley walls. Topic(s): glaciers. Subscribe ...

The movement transfers ice, snow, and firn from locations with net accumulation to locations with net loss. For valley and mountain glaciers this movement is from the head of the glacier towards its terminus. If a glacier as a whole has a positive mass balance, the glacier terminus advances and the glacier expands in area.

Search by glacier name or number or by glacier parameters. Note: If you search by glacier name or number, you cannot refine your search by addtional parameters. This search will return only those records that exactly match your entry. Not all glaciers have names, but all glaciers have numbers. Note ...

glacier that has one or more tributary glaciers that flow into it; distinguished from a simple valley glacier that has only a single tributary glacier. Image In this photograph from 1969, small glaciers flow into the larger Columbia Glacier from mountain valleys on both sides.

Agassiz Glacier is the smaller glacier to the left. The Malaspina Glacier is one of the most famous examples of this type of glacier, and is the largest piedmont glacier in the world. Spilling out of the Seward Ice Field (visible near the top of the photograph), it covers over 5,000 square kilometers as it spreads across the coastal plain.

Ice caps are miniature ice sheets. An ice cap covers less than 50,000 square kilometers (19,300 square miles) and comprises several merged glaciers. Like ice sheets, ice caps tend to spread out in dome-like shapes as opposed to occupying a single valley or set of connected valleys. Ice caps form in high-altitude polar and subpolar mountain regions.

a valley glacier which drains an inland ice sheet or ice cap and flows through a gap in peripheral mountains.