ABSTRACT
Glaciers come in all shapes and sizes: from continental ice sheets that engulf substantial portions of the planet to tiny ice aprons that shelter precariously on precipitous mountainsides; and from high-altitude tropical ice caps to floating polar ice shelves. However, the physical properties of ice are approximately constant between glaciers, and the major environmental controls on glacier behaviour - such as gravity, precipitation and ablation - are ubiquitous. Therefore, glaciers of different types share many characteristics, and we can discuss glaciers in terms of a common basic anatomy. This chapter will consider first the overall shape of glaciers, and then explore the different parts or zones of which a glacier is composed.
