This study deals with relationships between debris-covered glaciers and rock glaciers in the central Andes of Chile. Three glacier–rock glacier transitional landforms are investigated over the last decades in order to highlight and question the significance of their landscape evolution and dynamics. We use series of historical air photos and Geoeye satellite images together with common remote sensing operations including imagery orthorectification, digital elevation model generation, and cross-correlation image matching. At each site, the following items were monitored: rock glacier morphology, thermokarst area, horizontal surface displacements and vertical surface displacements. The evolution of the landforms is remarkable given the short time span of the study, with horizontal surface displacements up to more than 3 m yr<sup>−1</sup> and vertical displacements up to more than ±1 m yr<sup>−1</sup>. The landforms studied reveal different evolutional significance: (i) overlap of glacier and rock glacier development; (ii) glacier–rock glacier transformation; (iii) glacier–rock glacier collision. Insights are gained for the second case: the transformation may take place by the division and mixing of the buried ice body into distinct flow lobes and/or the apparent upward progression of the rock glacier morphology by the successive incorporation of debris-covered glacier patches.