NDA (I) 2022 General Ability Test · Question 140 of 150

Correct — D, Ladakh. Moraines, eskers and outwash plains are all glacial and fluvioglacial landforms — they form where glaciers deposit the rock debris they carry. Among the options, only Ladakh is a high-altitude, cold mountain region with active and relict glaciers (the Siachen, Zanskar and other Karakoram-Himalayan glaciers), so it is the only Union Territory where such glacial features occur. The other three are low-lying tropical coastal or island territories with no glaciers.

• (a)Andaman and Nicobar Islands — A tropical archipelago in the Bay of Bengal shaped by marine and coral processes; it has no glaciers and hence no moraines or eskers.
• (b)Lakshadweep — A group of low coral atolls in the Arabian Sea — warm, sea-level islands with no ice cover of any kind.
• (c)Puducherry — A coastal Union Territory on the plains of peninsular India; its landforms are deltaic and coastal, not glacial.

Glaciers pick up and carry rock debris, then dump it as distinctive landforms. A moraine is a ridge or sheet of glacial till; an esker is a winding ridge of sand and gravel left by a stream flowing under or within the ice; an outwash plain is the flat spread of sediment laid down by meltwater beyond the glacier's snout. All three need ice, so they appear only in cold, high-altitude or high-latitude regions.

The question is really asking 'which of these places has glaciers?' Three options are warm coastal or island territories, so they can be eliminated at once. Ladakh, carved into the Karakoram and Himalaya and holding some of India's largest glaciers, is the obvious cold-region answer.

• Moraine, esker and outwash plain are glacial / fluvioglacial depositional landforms.
• Ladakh, a Union Territory since 2019, is a high cold desert within the Karakoram-Himalaya with major glaciers such as the Siachen.
• Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep are tropical island territories; Puducherry lies on the coastal plains — none have glaciers.
• Moraines are unsorted till, whereas eskers and outwash are sorted by meltwater.

• Picking a familiar island Union Territory without checking the climate needed for glaciers.
• Mixing up moraines (ice-deposited, unsorted) with river-deposited, sorted landforms.

As an applied 'where would you go to see X landform' item that tests the climate/process link behind glacial features.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A long, narrow, winding ridge of stratified sand and gravel deposited by a meltwater stream under a glacier is called a/an

  • (a)esker
  • (b)moraine
  • (c)cirque
  • (d)delta

  Answer(a) esker — a fluvioglacial ridge left by a sub-glacial or englacial meltwater stream.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following Indian glaciers is the source region often linked with the Nubra Valley in Ladakh?

  • (a)Gangotri Glacier
  • (b)Siachen Glacier
  • (c)Pindari Glacier
  • (d)Zemu Glacier

  Answer(b) Siachen Glacier — it lies in the eastern Karakoram of Ladakh and feeds the Nubra.