Glaciers and Plucking for Dummies

Glacial plucking

Over the years the Antisocial Network Staffers have come to realize that it often takes only a sentence or two to recognize the freelancers babbling about topics they don't understand. The clue is often a blatant misstatement of facts, but not always. As an example of the concept, let's begin with the opening paragraph of today's nominee, a WiseGEEK.com post by Andrew Kirmayer entitled "What Is Glacial Plucking?" (now at niche site AllThingsNature.com).

Kirmayer, whose LinkedIn biography touts a creative writing degree, clearly got "creative" with the science of glaciology; opening his post with a topical – albeit off-topic – nod to what little he apparently knew of science:

"Climate change generally refers to atmospheric warming and changing weather patterns that may be brought on by man-made processes and emissions. The climate has gone in cycles throughout history and glaciation is typically one example."

The first sentence makes it clear that Andy (as he was known by eHow.com) believed all climate change to be anthropogenic. It's not. The second sentence suggests that Kirmayer seems to believe glaciation is a climate... we think. That's not true, either.

The sad part of Kirmayer's post is that he somehow managed to find and reword (to avoid plagiarism) a definition of glacial plucking without completely botching it. Then again, how hard is it to mess up defining glacial plucking as,

"...Pieces of bedrock can break off as a glacier passes, and become frozen within the ice..."

Unfortunately, from that point on Andy spewed misinformation and fractured factoids at a furious rate. Here for your consideration are a few of his more... interesting... statements, with our corrections:

• "The rocks typically travel along the base of the ice, and new features in the bedrock are often formed as the ice sometimes repeatedly advances and retreats." – We'd like to think that someone with a BA in creative writing would be taught not to use weasel words like "often... sometimes..." 
• "The ice, as well as debris in it, can erode various surfaces." – Ummm, Andy? Ice doesn't erode bedrock, it pushes soil into moraines. The plucking you're supposedly describing is the manner in which ice reshapes bedrock; not that you seem to understand that.
• "Abrasion and glacial plucking sometimes happen at the same time, and is often identified by a bullet-shaped rock formation." – Andy, the "bullet" shapes your reference mentioned are the shapes of the plucked rocks after transport, not some unspecified "rock formations."
• "Glacial plucking can happen in zones, where large amounts of rock are broken away. Nearby is often a lake that is formed when the glacier melts and the water pools in that area." – We think Kirmayer is trying to describe a tarn lake in a cirque... 

• "...a rock formation called a moraine typically marks the farthest point a glacier has advanced to." – No, Andy, a moraine is not a "rock formation": it's a pile of glacial till, which one of your fellow eHow writers was supposed to explain (but didn't).
• "...some modern day islands were formed by glaciation as well." – Long Island and Nantucket are both drowned remnants of terminal moraines, but we hesitate to claim they were "formed by glaciation," Andy. We suppose someone without much knowledge of logic and science would think so...

That's just some of the bogosity that led one of our staffers to nominate Andrew for his fourth Dumbass of the Day award, and third in the sciences. Apparently, CUNY doesn't even require a science elective for that creative writing degree.

SI - GLACIERS