Glacier

ice · mountains · slow but powerful

Born from snow. A glacier forms where more snow piles up each year than melts away. Over centuries, all that snow squeezes into thick, solid ice.

Always moving. Even though it looks frozen still, a glacier is constantly creeping downhill under its own weight, sometimes cracking into deep splits called crevasses.

Landscape sculptor. As a glacier slides along, it scrapes and grinds the rock beneath it, carving out valleys, bowls called cirques, and even fjords.

Not sea ice. Glaciers always begin on land, which makes them different from the thin sea ice and lake ice that freeze on top of water.