Meanings
- uncountableThe adjustment of the lithosphere due to the formation or melting of glaciers and ice sheets.
It is assumed that glacioisostasy is the principal and virtually the only cause of oscillating movements of the earth's crust in regions with thick glaciers.
1964, Soviet-bloc Research in Geophysics, Astronomy, and Space2 more examples
It is now widely accepted that phenomena like glacioisostasy and hydroisostasy have produced a vertical deformation of the earth's crust in virtually all coastal areas over the last 20 ka.
1997, R. W. G. Carter, C. D. Woodroffe, Coastal Evolution: Late Quaternary Shoreline Morphodynamics, →ISBNThus it appears that relative sea-level changes that are both rapid and large scale can only be brought about by glacioisostasy and glacioeustasy, and, so far as we know, major build-ups of continental ice sheets that produced significant volumes of ice are confined to several relatively short periods of the Earth's history in the latest Precambrian, the Ordovician-Silurian, Carboniferous-Permian, and the mid-Cenozoic to the present day.
2009, Harold G. Reading, Sedimentary Environments: Processes, Facies and Stratigraphy, →ISBN
Origin
Cite this entry
glacioisostasy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/glacioisostasy
“glacioisostasy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/glacioisostasy. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “glacioisostasy,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/glacioisostasy.
Source: glacioisostasy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.