This collection of comparative glacier images adapted from the National Snow and Ice Data Center shows substantial changes in five Alaskan glacier positions over periods of 60 to 100 years.

This video segment from Nature describes how glaciers eroded the bedrock of Ireland’s landscape.

In this year's Geodynamics Seminar, we will explore the depth and breadth of scientific research related to Earth's present and past ice-sheets, glaciers and sea-ice, as well as extraterrestrial planetary ice. Invited speakers have been chosen from experts in the current frontiers in ice-related research, including planetary ice, climate records from polar and tropical ice cores, the Snowball Earth, subglacial volcanoes, ice rheology, ice sheet modeling, ice microkinetics, glacial erosion and tectonics, subglacial life and polar remote sensing. A field trip to Iceland in Summer 2006 will allow us to view some of the island's ice caps and glacial geology, the exposed mid Atlantic Ridge and evidence of ice-volcano interactions.

Iceberg B-15A, in Antarctica's McMurdo Sound, is as large as Long Island, NY (3,000 square kilometers or 1,200 square miles) and is the largest fragment of a much larger iceberg that broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000. Iceberg B-15A has trapped sea ice in McMurdo Sound, and the ice build-up presents significant problems for Antarctic penguins, which must now swim great distances to reach open waters and food. These images were taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASAs Aqua and Terra satellites between 2004-11-09 and 2005-01-17.

In this video from Nature, learn about the many different features and effects of glaciers in Ireland.

Featuring images of glacier formations, this interactive resource adapted from the National Park Service explains what glaciers are, where they are found, how they form, and how they move.

Adjust mountain snowfall and temperature to see the glacier grow and shrink. Use scientific tools to measure thickness, velocity, friction, and glacial budget.

The Larsen ice shelf at the northern end of the Antarctic Peninsula experienced a dramatic collapse between January 31 and March 7, 2002. First, melt ponds appeared on the ice shelf during these summer months (seen in blue on the shelf), then a minor collapse of about 800 square kilometers occurred. Finally, a 2600 square kilometer collapse took place, leaving thousands of sliver icebergs and berg fragments where the shelf formerly lay. Brownish streaks within the floating chunks mark areas where rocks and morainal debris are exposed from the former underside and interior of the shelf. These images were acquired by the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite.

This interactive feature story is part of Science Bulletins, an innovative online and exhibition program that offers the public a window into the excitement of scientific discovery. Published in March 2005, this Earth Bulletin follows a team of glaciologists racing to core the world's largest tropical ice cap -- before global warming melts it away.

During the last few decades, the permanent snow and ice on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro has almost completely disappeared, at the rate of about a foot and a half of glacial ice lost per year. This loss is primarily due to increasing average annual temperatures in the region, and scientists are speculating that the glaciers could be completely gone from Kilimanjaro by the year 2015. This ice cap formed more that 11,000 years ago, and 80% of the ice fields have been lost in only the last century. The shrinkage is illustrated here in Landsat images from 1993, 2000, and 2002, with the 1993 image showing a significant ice cap and the more recent images showing only small glaciers and snow regions remaining.

Observe the Nisqually Glacier at Mount Rainier in this video segment from NatureScene.

The Pine Island Glacier is the largest discharger of ice in Antarctica and the continents fastest moving glacier. Even so, when a large crack formed across the glacier in mid 2000, it was surprising how fast the crack expanded, 15 meters per day, and how soon the resulting iceberg broke off, mid-November, 2001. This iceberg, called B-21, is 42 kilometers by 17 kilometers and contains seven years of glacier outflow released to the sea in a single event. This series of images from the MISR instrument on the Terra satellite not only shows the crack expanding and the iceberg break off, but the seaward moving glacial flow in the parts of the Pine Island Glacier upstream of the crack.

The sea ice around Antarctica grows dramatically from late February, when large parts of the coast are ice-free, to October, when the amount of sea ice effectively doubles the size of the continent. The SeaWinds Scatterometer instrument on the QuikSCAT satellite captures this dramatic ebb and flow and shows the sea ice as dynamic and always moving, even in areas that are ice-bound. This animation shows the sea ice around Antarctica from SeaWinds during 2004. SeaWinds can see individual icebergs if they are large enough, and a large iceberg can be seen for most of the year south of South America as it moves from the Antarctic Peninsula to the South Sandwich Islands. Also visible are the very convoluted and dynamic border between the sea ice and the open sea and holes in the sea ice created by the movement around fixed land features such as islands.

" A great variety of processes affect the surface of the Earth. Topics to be covered are production and movement of surficial materials; soils and soil erosion; precipitation; streams and lakes; groundwater flow; glaciers and their deposits. The course combines aspects of geology, climatology, hydrology, and soil science to present a coherent introduction to the surface of the Earth, with emphasis on both fundamental concepts and practical applications, as a basis for understanding and intelligent management of the Earth's physical and chemical environment."