| content | |||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Ice field. (Discuss) |
An ice cap is an ice mass that covers less than 50 000 km² of land area (usually covering a highland area). Masses of ice covering more than 50 000 km² are termed an ice sheet.[1][2]
Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features (i.e., they will lie over the top of mountains) but their dome is usually centred around the highest point of a massif. Ice flows away from this high point (the ice divide) towards the ice cap's periphery.[1]
Vatnajökull is an example of an ice cap in Iceland.[3]
References
- ^ a b Benn, Douglas; David Evans (1998). Glaciers and Glaciation (in English). London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-58431-9.
- ^ Bennett, Matthew; Neil Glasser (1996). Glacial Geology: Ice Sheets and Landforms (in English). Chichester, England: John Wiley and Sons Ltd.. ISBN 0-471-96345-3.
- ^ Flowers, Gwenn E.; Shawn J. Marshall, Helgi Bjŏrnsson and Garry K. C. Clarke (2005). "Sensitivity of Vatnajŏkull ice cap hydrology and dynamics to climate warming over the next 2 centuries". Journal of Geophysical Research 110: F02011. doi:. Retrieved on 2007-05-31.
See also
|
|||||||||||||||||
 |
This article relating to a topographical term is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
