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curling

(Encyclopedia)curling, winter sport, similar in principle to bowls and quoits (see horseshoe pitching), played on an ice court called a sheet by teams of four. Each player hurls a squat, circular stone—weighing 3...

moraine

(Encyclopedia)moraine mərānˈ [key], a formation composed of unsorted and unbedded rock and soil debris called till, which was deposited by a glacier. The till that falls on the sides of a valley glacier from the...

kame

(Encyclopedia)kame kām [key], low, steep, rounded hill or ridge of layered sand and gravel drift, developed from glacial deposits. Kames were probably formed by streams of melting glacial ice that deposited mud an...

Antarctica

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Antarctica ăntärkˈtĭkə, –ärˈtĭkə [key], the fifth largest continent, c.5,500,000 sq mi (14,245,000 sq km), asymmetrically centered on the South Pole and almost entirely within the An...

Pleistocene epoch

(Encyclopedia)Pleistocene epoch plīˈstəsēn [key], 6th epoch of the Cenozoic era of geologic time (see Geologic Timescale, tablegeologic timescale, table). According to a classification that considered its depos...

Vatnajökull

(Encyclopedia)Vatnajökull vätˈnäyöˈko͝ol [key], glacier, c.3,150 sq mi (8,160 sq km), SE Iceland; largest glacier in Europe. At an elevation of from 4,200 to 6,100 ft (1,280–1,860 m), it covers a huge volc...

Vostok, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Vostok, Lake väˈstôk [key], c.3,900 sq mi (10,000 sq km), c.155 mi (250 km) long and 30 mi (50 km) at its greatest width, in East Antartica beneath the remote Vostok research station. One of the la...

neutrino astronomy

(Encyclopedia)neutrino astronomy, study of stars by means of their emission of neutrinos, fundamental particles that result from nuclear reactions and are emitted by stars along with light. Approximately 100 billio...

polar bear

(Encyclopedia)polar bear, large white bear, Ursus maritimus, formerly Thalarctos maritimus, of the coasts of arctic North America, Asia, and Europe. Polar bears usually live on drifting pack ice, but sometimes wand...

Nordenskjöld, Nils Adolf Erik, Baron

(Encyclopedia)Nordenskjöld, Nils Adolf Erik, Baron nĭls äˈdôlf āˈrĭk no͞orˈdənshöld [key], 1832–1901, Swedish geologist and arctic explorer, first to navigate the Northeast Passage, b. Finland. He ser...