Fact of the week: Things not made out of ice

 A few years ago, I learned that igloos are not made out of ice blocks. They are made out of compacted snow. Before you start to try your hand at building an igloo, you also need to find the correct type of snow. The snow that is settled in still weather will not be able to build a sturdy igloo. An adult can stand on the top of an igloo once it is built. To be fair, once an igloo is built, the inside is melted slightly and allowed to refreeze to strengthen the structure.      

Secondly, glaciers are also not solid ice blocks. I had assumed that they were all frozen water formed in the ice age. They can form as long as the snowfall is greater than the rate of water melting. The snow does compact into dense ice. This also explains why there is glacier erosion. As more snow falls, the weight and pressure change, This causes the glacier to move at a mean speed of one meter a day as fast as twenty to thirty meters a day.  

Now before anyone starts arguing that snow is ice, my definition is that snow falls from the sky. Ice is defined as water frozen at ground level. And I am not talking about the wrong kind of snow.