Landform Detective: Glaciers
Identify the landforms a glacier leaves behind: the high, steep landforms of erosion such as corries, aretes and glacial troughs, and the lower landforms of deposition such as drumlins and moraine, and how to tell the two groups apart.
Use it, the way the marks are given
Free interactive practice at using the material, which is what the marks are for.
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Reading a glaciated landscape
A glacier leaves a landscape full of clues. High up, where the ice cut into the mountains, you find sharp, steep landforms of erosion. Lower down, where the ice melted and dropped the rock it carried, you find gentler landforms of deposition. This module teaches you to name each landform from a description and, above all, to tell the erosional landforms of the high ground from the depositional landforms of the low ground. The processes that carved them, such as plucking and abrasion, are covered in a separate module, so here we focus on the shapes themselves.
Landform words to know
Learn these before you sort any landform. Notice which sit high on the mountain and which sit lower in the valley.
Erosion high, deposition low
The single most useful idea is that erosional and depositional landforms sit in different places. Sorting by where they are found is the fastest way to tell them apart.
How to identify a landform
To name a landform, ask two questions. Where is it, high in steep mountains or lower on gentle ground? And what is its shape, sharp and cut into the rock or rounded and made of dropped material? High and sharp points to a landform of erosion, while low and rounded points to a landform of deposition. Match the location and the shape in the description and the name follows.
Match the landform to its description
- corrie
- arete
- glacial trough
- drumlin
- a deep armchair hollow high on a mountainside
- a narrow knife-edged ridge between two hollows
- a wide steep-sided U-shaped valley
- a low rounded hill of dropped material
Which landform is this?
A wide valley has a flat floor and very steep sides, shaped like the letter U. Which landform is it?
- A glacial trough, a U-shaped valley cut by ice.
- A corrie, a hollow high on a mountainside.
- A drumlin, a low rounded hill.
- An arete, a narrow ridge.
Pick the erosion landforms
Select the TWO landforms that are made by glacial erosion.
- Corrie
- Arete
- Moraine
- Drumlin
Read the height difference
On a map, the floor of a corrie is marked at 550 metres and a ribbon lake on the valley floor below is marked at 150 metres. Subtract the lower height from the higher to find the height difference in metres. What is the answer?
Order the landforms by height
Put these glacial landforms in order from the highest on the mountain to the lowest in the valley.
- Pyramidal peak at the mountain summit
- Arete ridge just below the summit
- Corrie hollow on the mountainside
- Ribbon lake on the valley floor
Complete the landform facts
A deep armchair hollow high on a mountainside is a _____. A narrow knife-edged ridge between two of them is an _____. A wide U-shaped valley cut by the ice is a glacial _____. A low rounded hill of material dropped by the ice is a _____.
Match the landform to where it forms
- a pyramidal peak
- a terminal moraine
- a truncated spur
- a swarm of drumlins
- a sharp summit cut by erosion on several sides
- a ridge of material dumped at the glacier snout
- a ridge end sliced off by the passing ice
- rounded hills of deposited till on low ground
Spot the true glacial landform facts
Tap the TWO statements that are true about glacial landforms.
- A corrie is a hollow cut high on a mountainside
- Moraine is material dropped as the ice melts
- A corrie forms on flat lowland ground
- Moraine is carved into solid rock by erosion
Name the landform
Read each description and choose the landform it describes.
- High in the Lake District a walker finds a deep rounded hollow scooped into the mountainside, with a small round lake in the bottom. Which landform is it?
- On low ground beyond the hills lies a field of smooth rounded hills, each made of a jumble of rock and clay. Which landform is it?
- Between two neighbouring hollows in Snowdonia runs a very narrow ridge with steep drops on both sides. Which landform is it?
Explain the glacial landforms
Explain the main landforms found in a glaciated upland and how you would tell a landform of erosion from a landform of deposition.
- Describe two landforms of glacial erosion and where they are found
- Describe two landforms of glacial deposition and where they are found
- Explain how the height and shape of a landform reveal how it formed
- Finish by explaining the clearest way to tell erosion landforms from deposition landforms