Glaciology is a sub-discipline of earth sciences which deals with the study of glaciers and in loose terms, glaciology studies the natural phenomena of ice. Glaciology itself is interdisciplinary field of science that uses the fundamentals and concepts of geophysics, physical geography, climatology, geology, geomorphology, ecology, biology, hydrology as well as meteorology. The effects and general impact on the lives of human being also adds anthropology as well as human geography within the field of glaciology. In accord, glaciology also has an extraterrestrial aspect due to the discovered presence of ice on Europa and also Mars. Other unique areas of glaciology include the natural reconstruction of previous glaciers in glacier history. This field is regarded as one of the primary areas of polar research. Within the naturally occurring glaciations there are two main categories. First is the alpine glaciation which refers to the ice accumulation within valleys and second is the continental glaciation which refers to unrestricted accumulations of ice. The continental glaciations at one point in history covered most of the northern continents.

Glaciology term papers are mostly written in APA style while others may be written in CSE/CBE style depending upon the level and institutional requirements of the papers such as the required word limit. Glaciology term papers mostly tend to be descriptive in terms of the unique and exclusive feature exhibited by alpine and continental glaciers. Term papers of higher levels focus upon the effects of climate on existing and past glaciers. Such term papers are usually integrated with climatology term papers.