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.