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.
Melting glaciers may be silently setting the stage for more explosive and frequent volcanic eruptions in the future, according to research on six volcanoes in the Chilean Andes.
Earth Sciences
Jul 7, 2025
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For years, scientists have debated whether a giant thick ice shelf once covered the entire Arctic Ocean during the coldest ice ages. Now, a new study published in Science Advances challenges this idea as the research team ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 4, 2025
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When visiting Godrevy beach on the north Cornish coast, most people look out to sea at the lighthouse, surfers and seals rather than the cliffs behind. But these cliffs hold a history of past climate and sea levels that is ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 23, 2025
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The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts say.
Environment
May 31, 2025
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The retreat of the planet's glaciers is one of the most visible and dramatic indicators of the far-reaching impact of climate change on the world's ecosystems.
Earth Sciences
May 13, 2025
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Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Boise State University have found evidence suggesting that the Marinoan glaciation began approximately 639 million years ago and lasted for approximately 4 million ...
A new study reveals there was a time when massive icebergs, like the ones we see in Antarctica today, were drifting less than 90 miles off the U.K. coastline.
Earth Sciences
Apr 24, 2025
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Around 10,000 years ago, as the last Ice Age drew to a close, the drifting of the continent of North America, and spreading in the Atlantic Ocean, may have temporarily sped up—with a little help from melting glaciers, according ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 23, 2025
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A trio of researchers has found evidence of the impact of the Late Antique Little Ice Age on Iceland almost 1,500 years ago. In their paper published in the journal Geology, Christopher Spencer, Thomas Gernon and Ross Mitchell ...
Much of Earth's heat uptake is passed to the ocean, making ocean heat content key for understanding long-term climate patterns. Ocean heat content is typically lower during ice ages and rises during warmer periods of glacier ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 14, 2025
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