Glacial Landforms: Glaciated Landscapes & Processes: Geography: GCSE (9:1)

Glacial erosion landforms

Features formed by abrasion and plucking.

Cirques/Corries

Large, armchair shaped hollow containing a lake. Cirques form when snow collects in a hollow on a mountain, turns into ice, and the glacier erodes the rock.

Arete

A narrow, knifelike ridge between two cirques. An arête forms when two glaciers erode back-to-back cirques on a mountain, carving away the rock.

Pyramidal Peak

Where several corries meet at a central point

U-shaped valley

valley shaped like a U it has steep sides and a wide flat floor. A U-shaped valley forms when a glacier moves through a V-shaped river valley, eroding the sides and bottom.

Ribbon lake

A long, narrow lake in the bottom of a U-shaped valley. A ribbon lake forms when a glacier erodes a deeper section of a U-shaped valley, and meltwater fills it after the glacier melts.

Hanging Valley

A small valley that “hangs” above a bigger one. It forms when a smaller glacier joins a larger glacier, but erodes the land less deeply.

Glacial deposition

When a glacier melts, it deposits the sediment it eroded from the land, creating various landforms.

Drumlin

A drumlin forms when a glacier moves over soft sediment and shapes it into a smooth, elongated hill.

Medial moraine

A moraine formed when two advancing valley glaciers come together to form a single ice stream, forms in the middle of the glacier.

Recessional moraine

Marks the pauses in the retreat of a glacier.

Lateral moraine

Moraine that forms along the side of a glacier

Terminal moraine

A moraine deposited at the point of furthest advance of a glacier or ice sheet.

Plucking

when a glacier freezes onto rocks and then pulls them away as it moves.

Abasion

Abrasion is when a glacier scrapes and smooths the ground as it moves over it

Eskers

An esker forms when meltwater rivers flow under a glacier, carrying and depositing sand and gravel.