Sixth Grade
Worksheets
Glacier Movements and Moraines
Caption: Lateral moraines above Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada.
Glaciers are large moving masses of ice. Glaciers covered much of the land of North America in the last Ice Age. Today there are still glaciers on Earth. Glaciers are found near the Poles and in high mountains. Glaciers form where more snow falls in the winter than melts in summer. As the mass of ice and compacted snow becomes larger and heavier, it begins to move. The weight of the ice pressing down and gravity cause glaciers to move. As glaciers move, they change the surface of the Earth. They are important causes of erosion.
As glaciers slide down a slope or across land, they push earth and rocks in front of them. They also pluck smaller bits of soil and rock from beneath them. These bits stick to the ice and become part of the glacier. A third way glaciers move earth materials is they scrape soil and rock from the sides of valleys as they move through the area.
