This book offers a comprehensive and detailed summary of our knowledge and understanding of glaciers and sets them within a global environment context. The text explains the significance both of recent advances in glaciology and of teh many research problms that remain to be solved. The accessible style adopted in the text facilitates a clear understanding of glaciers and the role they play in global issues such as environmental change geoorphology and hydrology. The use of complex mathematics is avoided as the reader is introduced to important concepts and techniques in modern glaciology such as deforming beds migrating ice-divides and stable isotope analysis. This is an essential reference book for sutdents professional geologists and researchers and would be ideal for those who want either a rapid up-date or an introduction to the subject. The books discussion of recent discoveries and of reserch issues for the future supported by a thorough reference list enables readers to pursue their own areas of particular interest.