This loss can result from melting, sublimation, evaporation, ice calving, aeolian processes like blowing snow, avalanche, and any other ablation.
Sediments dropped in the ablation zone forming small mounds or hillocks are called kames.
Kame and kettle hole topography is useful in identifying an ablation zone of a glacier.
The seasonally melting glacier deposits much sediment at its fringes in the ablation area.
Often mass balance measurements are made in the ablation zone using snow stakes.