Sliding of the glacier over bedrock, as shown in Figure 1, occurs only in glacier with ice at the pressure melting point and with enough over pressured water at the base to reduce friction between the ice and substrate. Soft, deformable, water saturated sediments at the base of glaciers enhance basal slippage, hence the faster movement of the glaciers.
The sketch showing the sliding of the glacier ice under gravity flow on the inclined bed of glacier.
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Kumar, R. (2011). Glacier Sliding. In: Singh, V.P., Singh, P., Haritashya, U.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2642-2_199
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