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Erosional landforms. As the glaciers expand, due to their accumulating weight of snow and ice they crush, abrade, and scour surfaces such as rocks and bedrock.The resulting erosional landforms include striations, cirques, glacial horns, arêtes, trim lines, U-shaped valleys, roches moutonnées, overdeepenings and hanging valleys.
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.
Fluvioglacial landform. Fluvioglacial landforms or glaciofluvial landforms[a] are those that result from the associated erosion and deposition of sediments caused by glacial meltwater. Glaciers contain suspended sediment loads, much of which is initially picked up from the underlying landmass. Landforms are shaped by glacial erosion through ...
The lake colors indicate amounts of sediment or depth. A kettle (also known as a kettle hole, kettlehole, or pothole) is a depression or hole in an outwash plain formed by retreating glaciers or draining floodwaters. The kettles are formed as a result of blocks of dead ice left behind by retreating glaciers, which become surrounded by sediment ...
Roche moutonnée near Myot Hill, Scotland In glaciology, a roche moutonnée (or sheepback) is a rock formation created by the passing of a glacier.The passage of glacial ice over underlying bedrock often results in asymmetric erosional forms as a result of abrasion on the "stoss" (upstream) side of the rock, and plucking (i.e. pieces cracked off) on the "lee" (downstream) side.
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.
The glacier visible at the head of the valley is the last remnant of the formerly much more extensive glacier which carved it. U-shaped valley with lake in Myklebustdalen, Nordfjord, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway. U-shaped valleys, also called trough valleys or glacial troughs, are formed by the process of glaciation.
Arête. Striding Edge, an arête viewed from Helvellyn with the corrie Red Tarn to the left and Nethermost Cove to the right. An arête (/ əˈrɛt / ə-RET; French: [aʁɛt]) [1] is a narrow ridge of rock that separates two valleys. It is typically formed when two glaciers erode parallel U-shaped valleys. Arêtes can also form when two glacial ...