I understand they’re big ol’ chunks of ice, but are they one solid mass? What is defined as the “border” of a glacier? I’ve seen discussions of the dangers of underground glacial rivers, what’s the deal with those?
In: Planetary Science
A glacier is a persistent body of dense ice. Basically, it’s a giant chunk of ice that is so large that it does not fully melt in the summer. We typically see them in the polar regions (the so-called polar ice caps,) and at the tops of mountains elsewhere on the globe. Basically if a mountain collects snow faster than the snow can melt or vaporize, over time that snow will compress under the weight of snow above into a glacier.
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