Glaciated upland landscapesFeatures of a glacial landscape

The diagram below shows some features of a glacial landscape.

1. A pyramidal peak has steep, triangular faces divided by sharp ridges or arêtes.
2. An arête is a sharp ridge between corries.
3. A corrie is an armchair-shaped hollow with steep back and sides.
4. A corrie loch, or tarn, is a body of water which has gathered in the hollow in the corrie floor.
5. An alluvial fan is a fan-shaped pile of rock remains (alluvium) washed down by a stream and piled up where a steep valley side meets the valley floor.
6. A ribbon lake is a long narrow lake in a part of the valley cut deeper by the glacier.
7. A truncated spur exists because a ridge has been cut off sharply by the ice that flowed down the main valley.
8. A misfit stream is so-called because it is far too small to have cut the valley.
9. A hanging valley is called this because the valley floor is much higher than the floor of the main valley.
10. A U-shaped valley has steep sides and a nearly flat floor. (The other side of the valley is missing in this cut-away diagram).

Sample questions

The sample questions that follow show ways of using diagrams to explain how the most common features were formed.