Glacial Landform

        A generic term of the surface and underground morphology formed from the corrosion of soluble rocks (mostly limestone) by corrosive water. Besides corrosion, mechanical erosion processes such as erosion of flowing water, suffosion and collapse.

Glacial Landform

Glacial Landform

        Horn peak——A glacial erosion lake refers to a lake formed by dropsy in a depression produced by scouring and quarrying in glacial movements in mountains or high latitude areas. Generally the lake basin is made of hard bedrock, with the bedrock surface of pelvic walls and pelvic floors often characterized by polished glacier surfaces, carved grooves and scratches.

Horn peak

        Arete——In the development of 2 adjacent cirques or glacier valleys, the hopper constantly retreated, making the watershed between the 2 adjacent cirques or cirque valleys increasingly narrow and finally forming fish fin and knife back shaped ridge, namely the arete.

Arete

        Cirque——As an oval shaped bedrock depression created near the snow line, a cirque is caused by erosion of snow and glacier. Original snow spots formed the cirque through further glacier erosion. Surrounded on 3 sides by cliffs, a typical cirque consists of rock basins, palisades and ice ridges, with its bottom as a rock basin, its plane as a semicircle, and its exit with a protruding threshold.

Cirque

        Hanging valley——A tributary glacier hanging on the valley slope of the main ice trough is called a hanging valley. The hanging valley was caused by the fact that the down-cutting capacity is much smaller than that of the main valley glacier.

        Glacial erosion lake——A glacial erosion lake refers to a lake formed by dropsy in a depression produced by scouring and quarrying in glacial movements in mountains or high latitude areas. Generally the lake basin is made of hard bedrock, with the bedrock surface of pelvic walls and pelvic floors often characterized by polished glacier surfaces, carved grooves and scratches.

Glacial erosion lake

        Glacial U valley——A glacial U valley refers to a U-shaped valley formed by glacial erosion, also known as glacial trough valley. As the most widely distributed terrain in mountain glaciers, the valley is wide and straight, with its cross section being “U” shaped. A glacial valley was generally formed by the river valley or mountain valley before general transformation of the glacial period. Due to the effect of mining and rasping of the glaciers, the valley got straightened, deepened, widened, with its walls turning steep and its bottom turning flat and its cross section turning “U” shaped. On the bedrocks of its bottom and slopes, it was common to witness polished surface and glacier scratches.

U valley

        Block Field——In cold areas like the top of a mountain, rocks will disintegrate under frost weathering and freeze-thaw action, resulting in big boulders. And if the boulders gather together on the slope, they will form a block field. If the boulders pile up in the valley, and move due to gravity, they form block streams. Both block fields and block streams are periglacial landforms.

Block Field

        Stone Circle——In a periglacial area, when the earth surface freezes, the surface and the larger gravel inside are lifted up, and the space under the gravel is then filled with finer particles of surrounding stones which have not frozen. When the surface thaws, the gravel cannot return to the original position, since the space underneath is occupied. This repeated freezing and thawing process causes the surface to gradually move upward and outward towards the surrounding cracks, which forms a polygonal structure of stone circles.

Stone Circle