explain how glaciers erode by abrasion?

Answer 1

abrasion •carried rock debris eroding •produces scratches. The other significant erosional process is abrasion. Plucked debris in basal ice grinds into the bedrock, just like sandpaper across wood. This grinding leaves long grooves in the bedrock called striations (if the sandpaper or ripper is coarse) or smooth polish (if the sandpaper is fine or the bulldozer is pulling a smoothing implement). If the glacier is no longer present, striations can be used to determine the direction of ice flow. Abrasion can also be seen through the presence of chattermarks, arcuate pressure fractures. Abrasion, too, requires a "warm" glacier bed.
VR

Answer 2

A common misconception is that glacial ice erodes the landscape. This is not true because ice has a hardness that is less than most minerals (look up Moh's hardness scale) that make up rocks.

Instead, debris (silt, sand, gravel, cobbles, boulders, etc) either become frozen into the bed of a glacier as it moves, or simply move along the ground underneath the glacier (glaciers that are two miles thick will exert enormous force on sand and boulders beneath it). This material is what abrades the underlying bedrock.

This process is similar to using sandpaper to abrade wood. Sandpaper has sand particles glued (or frozen) into the base of the paper. The paper itself will not abrade the wood, but the sand embedded into it will.

Answer 3

Cold glaciers erode and deposit: Evidence from Allan Hills, Antarctica

1 Antarctic Research Centre and School of Earth Sciences, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand
2 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5B7, Canada

Here we report previously undescribed features of erosion and deposition by a cold (polar) glacier. A recent study challenged the assumption that cold glaciers neither slide nor abrade their beds, but no geological evidence was offered. The features we describe include abrasion marks, subglacial deposits, glaciotectonically deformed substrate, isolated blocks, ice-cored debris mounds, and boulder trains, all products of a recent cold ice advance and retreat. Mapping these features elsewhere in Antarctica will document recent shifts in the East Antarctic Ice Sheet margin, providing new insight on regional mass-balance changes

Answer 4

Glaciers themselves don't really erode until they reach the sea then they start to fragment and start falling apart.What glaciers do erode is the land they travel over.They are so massive and heavy that they destroy everything in it's path,and therefore carve out large spoon-shaped canyons in their way.

Answer 5

Abrasion, noun, the act of abrading.
Abrade, v, to wear off or down by scraping or rubbing

Glaciers are formations (actually rivers) of high-density ice (approximately 10 times more dense than the ice you get out of your kitchen freezer). While they are dense, they are still made of ice which means that they will move, usually due to gravity and pressure.

When the ice moves, it generates friction between it and the surrounding surfaces. This friction either causes the ice on the fringes to melt or it removes particles of the surrounding materials.