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Ice cap
 
 
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An ice cap is an ice
Ice

Ice is a solid phases of matter, usually crystalline solid, of a non-metallic substance that is liquid or gas at room temperature, such as ammonia ice or methane 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
Ice sheet

An ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 square kilometer . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the last glacial period at Last Glacial Maximum the Laurentide ice sheet covered much of Canada and North America, the Wisconsin glaciation ice sheet covered n...
.

Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features (i.e., they will lie over the top of mountains) but their dome is usually centred on the highest point of a massif
Massif

In geology, a massif is a section of a planet's Crust that is demarcated by geologic faults or flexures. In the Plate tectonics, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole....
. Ice flows away from this high point (the ice divide
Ice divide

An ice divide is the boundary on an ice sheet, ice cap or glacier separating opposing flow directions of ice, analogous to a drainage divide. Such ice divides are important for geochronology investigations using ice cores, because such coring is typically made on top of a dome of an ice sheet to avoid interferences caused by horizontal ice mo...
) towards the ice cap's periphery.

Vatnajökull
Vatnajökull

Vatnaj?kull is the largest Glaciers of Iceland. It is located in the south-east of the island, covering more than 8% of the country. With a size of 8,100 km?, it is the largest glacier in Europe in volume and the second largest in area ....
 is an example of an ice cap in Iceland
Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
.








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An ice cap is an ice
Ice

Ice is a solid phases of matter, usually crystalline solid, of a non-metallic substance that is liquid or gas at room temperature, such as ammonia ice or methane 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
Ice sheet

An ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 square kilometer . The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the last glacial period at Last Glacial Maximum the Laurentide ice sheet covered much of Canada and North America, the Wisconsin glaciation ice sheet covered n...
.

Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features (i.e., they will lie over the top of mountains) but their dome is usually centred on the highest point of a massif
Massif

In geology, a massif is a section of a planet's Crust that is demarcated by geologic faults or flexures. In the Plate tectonics, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole....
. Ice flows away from this high point (the ice divide
Ice divide

An ice divide is the boundary on an ice sheet, ice cap or glacier separating opposing flow directions of ice, analogous to a drainage divide. Such ice divides are important for geochronology investigations using ice cores, because such coring is typically made on top of a dome of an ice sheet to avoid interferences caused by horizontal ice mo...
) towards the ice cap's periphery.

Vatnajökull
Vatnajökull

Vatnaj?kull is the largest Glaciers of Iceland. It is located in the south-east of the island, covering more than 8% of the country. With a size of 8,100 km?, it is the largest glacier in Europe in volume and the second largest in area ....
 is an example of an ice cap in Iceland
Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
.

See also

  • Polar ice cap
    Polar ice cap

    A polar ice cap is a high-latitude region of a planet or natural satellite that is covered in ice. There are no requirements with respect to size or composition for a body of ice to be termed a polar ice cap, nor any geological requirement for it to be over land; only that it must be a body of solid phase matter in the polar region....
  • Ice shelf
    Ice shelf

    An ice shelf is a thick, floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface....
  • Glacier
    Glacier

    A glacier is a large, slow-moving mass of ice, formed from compacted layers of snow, that slowly deforms and flows in response to gravity and high pressure....
  • Icefield