Glacial Landforms

• Corries

  • snow gathers in a hollow and compresses into ice
  • freeze-thaw weathering adds rock fragments to the ice
  • Gravity starts pulling the ice down the hill by rotational slip
  • The glacier's rotation and abrasion deepen the hollow
  • When the ice melts, an armchair shape hollow is left which sometimes has a small lake called a tarn
• Pyramidal peak - form when three corries form back to back
• Arete - steep ridge that forms when two corries form back to back
• Hanging valley - Smaller valley joined to a larger valley
• Ribbon lake - Long, thin lake that forms in a glacial trough
• Truncated spurs - Interlocking spurs that have been chopped off or truncated by the glacier moving down the valley
• Drumlin - egg shaped hills formed when material at the base of a glacier hits an obstruction and is deposited
• Erratic - large boulders left behind by glaciers that are a different rock type to the place where they have been deposited