Cirque
Also called: Corrie, Cwm · Topic: Landforms and their Evolution: Rivers, Groundwater, Glaciers, Waves and Wind · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 2 "Shaping of the Earth's Surface"; Class 11, Ch 6 "Landforms and their Evolution"
Meaning
A cirque is a deep, armchair-shaped hollow at the head of a glacial valley. Its back wall and side walls are steep, curving and sometimes almost vertical. Snow collects in a mountain hollow and turns into ice. The ice then deepens and widens the hollow by plucking (pulling out blocks of rock) and abrasion (scraping with those blocks). The cirque is the most common landform in glaciated mountains. When cirques cut back towards each other, they create aretes and horns.
Example
Cwm Idwal in Snowdonia, Wales, is a classic cirque. In Wales a cirque is called a "cwm".
Don't confuse with
- Tarn: the lake left inside a cirque after the ice melts. The cirque is the hollow, and the tarn is the water in it.
Related concepts
- Glacier
- Valley glacier
- Continental glacier
- Plucking
- Tarn
- Horn
- Arete
- U-shaped valley
- Hanging valley
- Truncated spur