Formation
Ice fields are formed by a large accumulation of snow which, through years of compression and freezing, turns into ice. Due to ice’s susceptibility to gravity, ice fields usually form over large areas that are basins or atop plateaus thus allowing a continuum of ice to form over the landscape and not be interrupted by glacial channels. Glaciers often form on the edges of ice fields serving as gravity-propelled drains on the ice field which is in turn replenished by the ice field’s snowfall.
While an ice cap is not constrained by topography, an ice field is. An ice field is also distinguishable from an ice cap because it does not have a dome-like form.
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Famous quotes containing the word formation:
“The moral virtues, then, are produced in us neither by nature nor against nature. Nature, indeed, prepares in us the ground for their reception, but their complete formation is the product of habit.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“Those who were skillful in Anatomy among the Ancients, concluded from the outward and inward Make of an Human Body, that it was the Work of a Being transcendently Wise and Powerful. As the World grew more enlightened in this Art, their Discoveries gave them fresh Opportunities of admiring the Conduct of Providence in the Formation of an Human Body.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
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