Mountains | Key Terms Flashcards
Corrie.
An armchair shaped hollow high on a mountain that has steep sides.
Glaciation
The process of being covered by glaciers or ice sheets.
Glaciers
Form when snow gathers up in a mountain hollow and compacts.
Moraine. (4 types)
Terminal: Found at the end point.
Lateral: On the sides.
Medial: Middle part between the two glaciers.
Ground: disorganised piles of rock spread over the ground when the glacier retreats.
Plucking
Rocks and stones picked up by the glacier as it moves.
Abrasion
The glacier acts like sandpaper, the rocks embedded on the bottom part and sides erodes the landscape and leaves a smooth polished surface with little scratches.
U-Shaped Valley
When the glacier erodes and moves through a v-shaped valley, it widens it up and retreats, they can have tributaries.
Tributaries
Small rivers like capillaries that have a parent.
Hanging valleys
The end/edge of valley where there can be waterfalls.
Ribbon lakes
Long thin lakes that form when water collects in the depressions made by the glacier.
Tarn/Cirque lake
This can form when after glaciation occurs in a mountain.
Arête
Knife-edge ridge formed when two corries run back to back.
Pyramidal peak
When 3 or more corries create a sharply pointed summit.
Interlocking spurs
(looks like a zip) the river erodes the landscape in the upper course and creates a second landscape. The water and wind avoid areas of hard rock.
Truncated spurs
Rounded areas of land which have been cut. They are often rounded at the top and steep at the bottom.
