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A cirque (French: [siʁk]; from the Latin word circus) is an amphitheatre -like valley formed by glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from Scottish Gaelic: coire, meaning a pot or cauldron) [1] and cwm (Welsh for 'valley'; pronounced [kʊm]). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform arising from fluvial erosion.
Pyramidal peak. The Matterhorn, a classic example of a pyramidal peak. A pyramidal peak, sometimes called a glacial horn in extreme cases, is an angular, sharply pointed mountain peak which results from the cirque erosion due to multiple glaciers diverging from a central point. Pyramidal peaks are often examples of nunataks.
Glacier morphology, or the form a glacier takes, is influenced by temperature, precipitation, topography, and other factors. [1] The goal of glacial morphology is to gain a better understanding of glaciated landscapes and the way they are shaped. [2] Types of glaciers can range from massive ice sheets, such as the Greenland ice sheet, to small ...
Glacial landform. Glacial landforms are landforms created by the action of glaciers. Most of today's glacial landforms were created by the movement of large ice sheets during the Quaternary glaciations. Some areas, like Fennoscandia and the southern Andes, have extensive occurrences of glacial landforms; other areas, such as the Sahara, display ...
Bergschrund. A bergschrund (from the German for mountain cleft) is a crevasse that forms where moving glacier ice separates from the stagnant ice or firn above. [1] It is often a serious obstacle for mountaineers, who sometimes abbreviate "bergschrund" to "schrund". Bergschrunds extend to the bedrock and can have a depth of well over 100 metres ...
Cirque glacier. A cirque glacier is formed in a cirque, a bowl-shaped depression on the side of or near mountains. Snow and ice accumulation in corries often occurs as the result of avalanching from higher surrounding slopes. If a cirque glacier advances far enough, it may become a valley glacier. Additionally, if a valley glacier retreats ...
Part of the glacier where snow builds up and turns to ice moves outward from there. The glacier head is the highest upslope edge of an alpine glacier or the upslope end of the zone of accumulation. The head of the glacier comes up against a steep bedrock cliff called a cirque headwall [2] Cross section of a cirque glacier showing the bergschrund.
A cirque stairway or sequence of cirque steps is a stepped succession of glacially eroded rock basins. [1] Their individual formation is that of a cirque . These steps are arranged one above and behind the other at different heights in the terrain and caused by the same morphodynamic processes, albeit resulting in different landform shapes ...