Glaciation refers to the climatic and geophysical processes leading to the formation, expansion, and persistence of glaciers and ice sheets, and their subsequent sculpting of the Earth’s surface. It encompasses large-scale cooling, snow accumulation exceeding ablation, and dynamic ice flow driven by gravity and basal sliding. Glaciation cycles, governed primarily by orbital forcing (Milankovitch cycles), greenhouse gas concentrations, and feedbacks involving albedo and ocean circulation, produce glacial–interglacial variations in global climate. These events generate diagnostic landforms (e.g., moraines, drumlins, U-shaped valleys) and stratigraphic signatures, and they are central topics in Quaternary science, paleoclimatology, and Earth system modeling.
A glacier on Antarctica's Eastern Peninsula experienced the fastest retreat recorded in modern history—in just two months, nearly 50% of the glacier disintegrated.
Earth Sciences
Nov 3, 2025
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97
A small Canadian mining company, Canagold, is seeking permits and approvals to renew gold mining operations at a remote site in northwestern British Columbia (B.C.). Called the New Polaris Mine, it faces opposition from First ...
Environment
Oct 19, 2025
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156
Large changes in global sea level, fueled by fluctuations in ice sheet growth and decay, occurred throughout the last ice age, rather than just toward the end of that period, a study published in the journal Science has found.
Earth Sciences
Oct 16, 2025
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88
An international research team led by the University of Bremen has investigated what influenced the expansion of the Patagonian ice sheet during the last ice age. The scientists found evidence that the advances and retreats ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 13, 2025
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26
Hippos, today restricted to sub-Saharan Africa, survived in central Europe far longer than previously assumed. Analyses of bone finds demonstrate that hippos inhabited the Upper Rhine Graben sometime between approximately ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 10, 2025
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56
An EPFL engineer has illustrated some of the complex ways in which climate change will affect hydropower facilities, taking the Gries dam in Valais Canton as a case study.
Earth Sciences
Oct 9, 2025
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32
For decades, scientists have been curious about how much water Mars once had and what led to its gradual transformation into the dry planet we see today. A new study published online on September 2, 2025, in the Geology journal, ...
Planetary Sciences
Oct 9, 2025
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48
Melting ice sheets in North America played a far greater role in driving global sea-level rise at the end of the last ice age than scientists had thought, according to a Tulane University-led study published in Nature Geoscience.
Earth Sciences
Oct 9, 2025
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98
For as long as there have been people in what is now California, the granite peaks of the Sierra Nevada have held masses of ice, according to new research that shows the glaciers have probably existed since the last Ice Age ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 2, 2025
4
272
Andean glaciers advanced during an acute period of climate change at the end of the last Ice Age, new research has found.
Earth Sciences
Sep 23, 2025
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