🔆 Glacial Landforms

📍 Formed by erosion and deposition as glaciers move under gravity. Key landforms:

📍 Erosional Landforms:
✅ Cirques – Bowl-shaped depressions at high elevations
✅ Nunataks – Rocky peaks protruding through glacier ice
✅ Arêtes – Sharp ridges between glaciers
✅ Horns – Pointed peaks carved by multiple glaciers
✅ Crevasses – Deep cracks in moving glaciers
✅ Fjords – Long inlets where glacial valleys meet the sea (📝UPSC 2023)

📍 Depositional Landforms:
✅ Moraines – Ridges of sediments deposited by melting glaciers
✅ Glacial Till – Unsorted rock mix left behind by glaciers
  🔹 Glacial Flour – Finest sediment causing cloudiness in glacial rivers
✅ Glacial Erratics – Large boulders deposited far from their origin

📍 Significance:
✅ Clues to past climates (e.g. glacial boulders in Talcher, India → ancient glaciation)

📝 Prelims Q:
Which of the following are correctly matched with glacial origin?
1. Cirques – Bowl-shaped depressions
2. Moraine – Glacial deposition
3. Arêtes – Sharp ridges between glaciers
4. Fjords – River valley erosion

A. 1, 2 and 3 ✅
B. All four
C. 2 and 3 only
D. 1 and 4 only

📌 Correct: A (Fjords = glacial, not river erosion)

📄 Mains Q (GS1):
Explain the formation and significance of glacial landforms. Highlight how these features act as indicators of past climatic changes. (150 words)

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