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Geolens

Glossary

417 words used in the labs.

Find a term from the labs, understand the process behind it, and see how it appears in the landscape. Each entry connects an explanation with a real observation and a model you can explore.

Term

Nival

Describing a river regime strongly influenced by seasonal snowmelt. Discharge often increases during the thawing season. This differs from a glacial regime dominated by the melting of glacier ice.

What to look for

Seasonal snowmelt feeds a stream near Fourth of July Lake, Idaho. A nival river regime is strongly influenced by snow accumulation and melt; this photograph shows a snowmelt source, not a measured annual hydrograph.

Related labs

River regime →
Melting snow patches and a stream near Fourth of July Lake in Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains.
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Explore further with USGS water glossary · USGS volcano glossary · NPS glacial geology · NASA Earth facts. Photograph acknowledgements are collected on the Image credits page.