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Debris-Covered Glaciers

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Synonyms

Debris-mantled glaciers; Glaciers noirs

Definition

A glacier where part of the ablation zone has a continuous cover of supraglacial debris across its full width. Some authors apply a more rigorous definition of debris cover over at least 50% of the ablation zone.

Debris covered-glaciers probably exist in all the major mountain regions of the world, and are the dominant valley glacier type in high-relief orogenic belts, where high denudation rates of mountain faces supply copious quantities of rock debris by rockfall, rock avalanching, and mixed snow/ice/rock avalanching. They are especially well-developed in the Himalaya (Racoviteanu et al., 2008a), Karakoram (Owen and Derbyshire, 1993; Shroder et al., 2000), Caucasus (Stokes et al., 2007), Alaska, New Zealand (Kirkbride, 1993) and parts of the Andes (Racoviteanu et al., 2008b). Small covered glaciers are also widespread in some regions of cirque glaciation such as northern Iceland and the Sierra Nevada, California (Clark et...

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Bibliography

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geography, School of the Environment, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK

    Martin P. Kirkbride

Authors
  1. Martin P. Kirkbride
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Correspondence to Martin P. Kirkbride .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

    Vijay P. Singh

  2. New Delhi, India

    Pratap Singh

  3. University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, USA

    Umesh K. Haritashya

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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

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Kirkbride, M.P. (2011). Debris-Covered Glaciers. In: Singh, V.P., Singh, P., Haritashya, U.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2642-2_622

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