Question

The particle level when a glacier melts

What happens at the particle level when a glacier melts?
A) The particles in a solid block of ice vibrate faster and faster until they gain enough energy to break free and begin slipping and sliding past each other.
B) The particles in a solid block of ice move slower and slower until they can no longer overcome their attractive forces and begin sliding past each other.
C) The particles in a solid block of ice move faster and faster until they can no longer overcome their attractive forces and begin vibrating in place.
D) The particles in a solid block of ice move slower and slower until they gain enough energy to break free and begin vibrating in place.

Answer 1

During the melting of a glacier, the ice particles vibrate faster and faster until they have enough energy to break free from their fixed positions, and begin moving past each other, transitioning from a solid to a liquid state.

Step-by-step explanation:

When a glacier melts, at the particle level, the particles in a solid block of ice vibrate faster due to the absorption of kinetic energy. This happens because when we heat a crystalline solid, like ice, we are actually increasing the average energy of its atoms, molecules, or ions. As the ice gets hotter, the added energy becomes large enough to partially overcome the forces that hold the molecules or ions in their fixed positions in the solid lattice structure.

The correct choice that describes what happens at the particle level when a glacier melts is A) The particles in a solid block of ice vibrate faster and faster until they gain enough energy to break free and begin slipping and sliding past each other. This is the process of transitioning to the liquid state, or melting. During this phase change, the temperature of the ice remains constant despite continued heat input and only starts to rise again after all the solid has melted.