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All a glacier really is, is a whole lot of snow. Like all mountains have snow on them? No, a glacier isn't the mountain after it has snowed, but after the snow has frozen. A glacier can can be enormous up to 440 miles long. In fact that is the largest glacier on earth. It's called the Lambert glacier and is located in Antarctica.

Glaciers, don't just stay in one place all the time, even though they're frozen solid. They don't exactly fly about, but nevertheless they do move. The fastest moving glacier is called Jakobshavn and it moves 62 feet in a day. It doesn't sound like a lot, though it really is, because the only way they can move is by sliding down a thin layer of water that is between the ice and the mountain, or they 'creep' which is when the top layer of ice moves to the bottom eventually making a frozen river sort of thing all the way down the mountain. A glacier can be a lot more complicated then that, yet this is, in basic, what it really is.

A glacier is a whole lot of snow and rain that has frozen. It has to be really cold for it to be totally frozen. Even in the coldest climates it takes years to freeze. Glaciers are not found everywhere for the simple reason that it isn't cold enough. Even in places where it is quite cold in the winter, in the summer everything that is frozen will melt. Glaciers are mostly found in Iceland, the Arctic, Antarctica, Alaska, and Canada. During the ice age a lot of glaciers were formed. Scientists say there have been three ice ages in the past. The first was about 600 million years ago. The next 200 million years ago and the most recent 8 million years ago. This one ended about 7,000 years before today.

When a a glacier is totally frozen, it can last for a long time. Up to five thousand years. The longest glacier in the world is the Lambert glacier. It is 40 miles wide and 440 miles long. It is located in Antarctica. In Greenland there is a glacier that moves 62 feet in one day. It is called Jakobshavn.

Glaciers do not stay the same size or shape due to the the weather. If it snows the chances are that the snow that landed on the glacier will freeze and the glacier will be bigger than it was before. If it is hotter than normal where the glacier is, it will melt a little.

Ice sheets: An a ice sheet is a dome-shaped glacier covering an area of more than 50,000 square km. It moves outward in all directions. The Antarctic and the Greenland ice sheets are the only ones now. The greatest thickness of the ice measured in the Antarctic ice sheet is 4,300 m (14,000 feet). Its average thickness is thought to be about 200 m. Calculations show that if the Antarctica ice sheet would melt completely the sea level around the world would rise more than 60 meters destroying much of the world's wealth.

Piedmont Glaciers: When a number of alpine glaciers flow together in the valley at the foot range of mountains they frequently form glacier sheets known as Piedmont Glaciers. Glaciers of this kind are especially common in Alaska which has an area of approximately 3,900 km. The lower portion of this glacier is almost flat and is covered with so much soil and rock debris that it supports a thick forest.

What's in a glacier?

Glaciers are just ice, aren't they?

No, a glacier is like a twister; they bring anything with them that is in their way. A glacier moves slowly at first catching onto anything it goes by. Twigs, leaves, rocks, and shrubs often get into a glacier. Glaciers scratch lines along the mountain. This is because of all the small, sharp things that are in a glacier, and as it moves along it leaves a trail. This is why you can tell where a glacier has been. Some of the rocks that are brought with it, break up into small little pieces until they are small particles, almost too small to see. The particles are called rock flour. The rock flour that is carried by the glacier ends up in rivers, ponds, lakes, and oceans. The water becomes a greyish brown. This is not pollution and it is not dangerous and will not harm the oceans. The particles will not damage or kill anything that is living in the ocean.

Does a glacier really move? Even though a glacier is thoroughly frozen it does move around. There are two ways that they do this. One is by sliding over a thin film of water that is in between the glacier and the other way they move is called creeping. What on earth is 'creeping'? Well, if you can believe it 'creeping' is a similar action to what a human version of creeping is. A glacier has ice layers and when the top layer comes down to the bottom that is called 'creeping'. What happens when all the ice has come down to the bottom? When that happens the bottom part of the glacier simply breaks off forming an iceberg.

What is Ice Age? Thirty-five thousand years ago was the time we call the 'Ice Age'. At this time more glaciers were formed, countries like England, France, Spain, and Germany were much colder then they are now. When the snow that covered the ocean, called ice sheets, was a lot more common then it is now. No one really knows why the 'Ice Age' came about or why it stopped 25,000 years later. There are theories, but there is no definite answer.

Did people live during the Ice Age? Yes, but how? Mammoth were a main source of food. All of the men would go out and kill them and bring back food for the women and children. Where did the Ice Age hunters live? They lived in western and central Europe and Germany and right across Siberia. Because it was much colder then the landscape looked very different from today. There were no oak or beach trees, but there were clusters of grass and fir trees that managed to grow through the cold climate. This kind of landscape is called tundra. There is still tundra in places of the world today.

What lived during the Ice Age? Animals like Mammoths (hairy elephants), woolly rhinos, cave bears, bison, wolves, horses and reindeer lived then. Mammoths, woolly rhinos, and cave bears are extinct now . The bones of these animals have been found all around in caves and under ground.

What did the Ice Age hunters look like? No one knows exactly how the ice hunters looked. They did paint pictures of themselves on walls of caves, though they are crumbling away. There are still their skeletons and skulls which have and are being studied by scientists. By studying these kinds of bones and skulls we kind probably tell what they looked like. In fact they looked very much like us. They had bigger teeth then we do. Their hair was thicker to protect them from the cold climate. They had more hair on their arms, legs, and chest as well. They were small, but a lot stronger than we are since they had to live in such cold climates without proper houses and clothes. What was the most important thing for an Ice Age hunter? Probably the fire to keep them warm. Also a fire would scare of any animals that tried to bother the humans. They gathered small twigs and leaves and made a pile of them. They struck stones that created a small spark that they then put onto the pile of twigs and leaves which created a fire. It was more difficult than just striking a match.

Where did the hunters live? Caves were a great place for the ice age hunters to live in. Most were near the river and fresh water supplies, and they were a shelter from the strong wind that blew wildly outside. In the winter that's where they lived and in the summer they followed the reindeer further north and camped in tents and made skins ready for the winter as they went. They hunted in groups and always shared what they got with the women and children. When they got back to there caves they would skin the animals and make clothes to wear out of the hide.

What did the Ice Age hunters use to kill the animals? The hunters used spears to kill their prey. This was made with a piece of flint at the top of a stick. They caught fish too. For this they used a harpoon made from a reindeer's antler. For a fish hook they used bone from the animal they just killed. Some Ice Age hunters decorated their spears and weapons with pictures of animals. There is no known reason for doing that. The Ice Age hunters didnŐt just eat meat, they also picked nuts, berries, and other wild fruits that they could find. Gradually, the Ice Age came to an end. People started to change their life styles and, finally, it became like today, the 90's.