Ice_cap

Vatnajökull, Iceland

An ice cap is a dome-shaped ice mass that covers less than 50 000 km² of land area (usually covering a highland area). Masses of ice covering more than 50 000 km² are termed an ice sheet. Benn, Douglas; David Evans (1998). Glaciers and Glaciation (in English). London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-58431-9.  Bennett, Matthew; Neil Glasser (1996). Glacial Geology: Ice Sheets and Landforms (in English). Chichester, England: John Wiley and Sons Ltd.. ISBN 0-471-96345-3. 

Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features (i.e., they will lie over the top of mountains) but their dome is usually centred around the highest point of a massif. Ice flows away from this high point (the ice divide) towards the ice cap\'s periphery.

Vatnajökull is an example of an ice cap in Iceland.Flowers, Gwenn E.; Shawn J. Marshall, Helgi Bjŏrnsson and Garry K. C. Clarke (2005). "Sensitivity of Vatnajŏkull ice cap hydrology and dynamics to climate warming over the next 2 centuries". Journal of Geophysical Research 110: F02011. doi:10.1029/2004JF000200. Retrieved on 2007-05-31. 

References

See also

• Polar ice cap
• Ice shelf
• Glacier
• Icefield

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