glacial valleys
Frozen river legacies
Glacial valleys are valleys carved by the movement of glaciers over thousands of years.
Unlike river valleys, which form V-shapes, glacial valleys have distinctive U-shaped profiles—steep walls and flat bottoms scoured by ice.
The hikers descended into the glacial valley, surrounded by sheer rock faces.
Many famous landscapes owe their dramatic forms to glacial carving: fjords, alpine valleys, and mountain cirques.
- cirquesGlacier-carved mountain hollows
- tarnsGlacial alpine lakes
- glacial lakeIce-formed water body
- roche moutonnéeGlacier-polished bedrock knob
- fjordsGlacially carved coastal inlets
Swiss Alps · alpine meadows · mountain goats · alpine tundra · ice age · plucking · glacial retreat · cold-adapted species · horns · permafrost · waterfalls · snowfields · arêtes · steep · snowmelt · abrasion · carved · peaks
- landformsmountain, cliff, volcano, mountain ridge, hill
- NorwayOslo, Bergen, Trondheim, fjord, fjords
- ScandinaviaNorway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland
- mountain wildernesspeaks, valleys, ridges, meadows, alpine meadows
- natural wondersnorthern lights, aurora borealis, auroras, rainbows, Great Barrier Reef
- Swiss sceneryAlps, Matterhorn, Eiger, chalets, alpine meadows
glacial valleysriver valleys
Land eroded by flowing water
slot canyons · rift valleys · wadis · arroyos · dry washes