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A cross-section through a glacier. The base of the glacier is more transparent as a result of melting. Glaciers may also move by basal sliding, where the base of the glacier is lubricated by the presence of liquid water, reducing basal shear stress and allowing the glacier to slide over the terrain on which it sits.
They have a characteristic U shape in cross-section, with steep, straight sides and a flat or rounded bottom (by contrast, valleys carved by rivers tend to be V-shaped in cross-section). Glaciated valleys are formed when a glacier travels across and down a slope, carving the valley by the action of scouring. [2]
English: Geologic Cross section of Glacier National Park, Montana, USA. Showing the Lewis overthrust fault and the proterozoic rocks above it, with English captions.
They typically have a U-shaped cross-section and are characteristic landforms of mountain areas where glaciation has occurred or continues to take place. [ 4 ] The uppermost part of a glacial valley frequently consists of one or more 'armchair-shaped' hollows, or ' cirques ', excavated by the rotational movement downslope of a cirque glacier.
The upstream portion – that section furthest into the glacier – consists of a branching system forming a network, similar to the anastomostic branching patterns of the upper reaches of a river (as contrasted with dendritic patterns). They typically exhibit the largest cross-sectional area in the center of the course and terminate over a ...
Cross-section of cirque erosion over time Kinnerly Peak in Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana. Glaciers, typically forming in drainages on the sides of a mountain, develop bowl-shaped basins called cirques (sometimes called 'corries' – from Scottish Gaelic coire [kʰəɾə] (a bowl) – or cwm s). Cirque glaciers have ...
Lower Curtis Glacier is a cirque glacier in the North Cascades in the U.S. state of Washington. Cirque glaciers are glaciers that appear in bowl-shaped valley hollows. [4] [12] Snow easily settles in the topographic structure; it is turned to ice as more snow falls and is subsequently compressed. [12]
Cross section of a cirque glacier showing the bergschrund A bergschrund—the long crack at the foot of the mountain slope—in the Ötztal Alps Open bergschrunds at Mont Dolent. 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]