Pyramidal Peak

Cards (9)

  • Snow gathers in a north facing hollow and compacts to ice, creating a glacier.
  • The glacier moves downhill due to gravity.
  • Plucking happens which is when ice freezes to rocks, the glacier moves and plucks the rocks out, steepening the back wall.
  • Abrasion happens which is when rocks stuck in the ice scrape the hollow, grinding it like sandpaper, deepening it.
  • Frost shattering happens which is when water gets into cracks in the rocks, freezes, expands and breaks the rock.
  • The weight of the glacier pushes down causing rotational sliding, which over-deepens the hollow
  • A pyramidal peak is formed when three corries erode back towards each other.
  • Frost shattering can make a sharp summit form.
  • An example is Mt Everest.