Landform

Alpine glaciers form on mountain slopes and are also known as mountain, niche or cirque glaciers. An Alpine glacier that fills a valley is referred to as a Valley glacier. Larger glaciers that cover an entire mountain, mountain chain or volcano are known as an ice cap or ice field.

Alpine permafrost (most permafrost is located in high latitudes (i.e. land in close proximity to the North and South poles)) may exist at high altitudes in much lower latitudes.

Arete a steep-sided, sharp-edged bedrock ridge formed by two glaciers eroding away on opposite sides of the ridge.

Bergschrund is a deep and often wide gap or crevasse, or series of closely spaced crevasses, in ice or firn at or near the head of a valley glacier. A bergschrund separates the moving ice and snow from the relatively immobile ice and snow adhering to the headwall of a valley (or cirque).

Berm an artificial ridge or embankment or a narrow path: a ledge or narrow path along the top or bottom of a slope, at the edge of a road, or along a canal.

Kjeragbolten, a 5 m³ boulder wedged in a mountain crevasse by the edge of the Kjerag mountain[1]

Chaco and Fajada Butte [2] is located in northwestern New Mexico.

Cirque is a steep-walled mountain basin which usually forms the blunt end of a valley. (French for "circus.")

A Mountain Pass or Col is in a range of hills or, especially, of mountains, a pass (also gap, notch, col, saddle, hause, bwlch (Welsh), brennig or bealach (Gaelic) is a path that allows the crossing of a mountain chain..

Cliff is a significant vertical, or near vertical, rock exposure. Cliffs are formed as erosion landforms due to the processes of erosion and weathering that produce them. Cliffs are common on coasts, in mountainous areas, escarpments and along rivers.

Snow Cornice is a Snow drift feature that forms along a break in slope, typically along ridgelines in exposed mountain areas. These can range from less than one meter to tens of meters in width and depth and from a few meters to more than a kilometer in length. Cornices can present serious hazards to mountain travelers including climbers, skiers, hikers, and snowmobilers.

Couloir is an open, steep gully, usually containing ice or snow. A couloir (from the French word meaning "passage" or "corridor,") is a deep gorge or gully formation found on the side of a mountain. A couloir may be a seam, scar, or fissure, or vertical crevasse in an otherwise solid mountain mass.

Crevasses cracks in the glacial ice. The upper 30 meters of glacial ice is somewhat brittle, and as the glacier flows, cracks develop. Crevasses rarely extend to depths below approximately 30 meters because the ice below that too plastic and the cracks close.

Escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that results from erosion or faulting and separates two relatively level areas of differing elevations.

Foothills are geographically defined as gradual increases in hilly areas at the base of a mountain range. They are a transition zone between plains and low relief hills to the adjacent topographically high mountains.

Glacier is a perennial mass of ice which moves over land. A glacier forms in locations where the mass accumulation of snow and ice exceeds ablation over many years. Columbia Icefields, Alberta Canada

Glacial erratic is a piece of rock that differs from the size and type of rock native to the area in which it rests.

Glaciation is a glacial period is an interval of time within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. (Columbia Icefields, Alberta Canada)

Glacial lake is a lake with origins in a melted glacier.

Gully is a landform created by running water eroding sharply into soil, typically on a hillside. Gullies resemble large ditches or small valleys, but are metres to tens of metres in depth and width.

Hanging Valley: a valley eroded by a small tributary glacier, such that the elevation of the valley floor is higher than the elevation of the valley floor that the hanging valley joins. The erosive power of glaciers is dictated by their size: the larger a glacier, the farther down into the landscape it can erode.

Hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. Hills often have a distinct summit, although in areas with scarp/dip topography a hill may refer to a particular section of scarp slope without a well-defined summit.

Headwall the steep back-wall of a cirque.

Horn a pyramid-shaped mountain peak created by several glaciers eroding away at different sides of the same mountain

Glacier and Mountain terms

Ice field is an area less than 50,000 km² (19,305 mile²) of ice often found in the colder climates and higher altitudes of the world where there is sufficient precipitation. It is an extensive area of interconnected valley glaciers from which the higher peaks rise as nunataks.

Ice Fall: the ice equivalent of a waterfall. As ice flows over a drop-off, it may break apart and then reform at the base of the drop-off.

Lake (from Latin lacus) is a terrain feature (or physical feature), a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin (another type of landform or terrain feature; that is, it is not global).

Landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rock falls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments.

Monadnock or inselberg is an isolated rock hill, knob, ridge, or small mountain that rises abruptly from a gently sloping or virtually level surrounding plain.

Mountain is a large landform that stretches above the surrounding land in a limited area usually in the form of a peak. A mountain is generally steeper than a hill

Nunatak (from Inuit nunataq) is an exposed, often rocky element of a ridge, mountain, or peak not covered with ice or snow within (or at the edge of) an ice field or glacier.

Mountain range is a chain of mountains bordered by highlands or separated from other mountains by passes or valleys.

Ogives are broad banded surface patterns that generally curve down-glacier as a result of faster ice movement toward the center of a glacier.

Physical weathering is the disintegration of earth material without undergoing a chemical change. Physical weathering results in increased surface area for chemical reactions to occur on.

Plateau also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau.

Permafrost or permafrost soil is soil at or below the freezing point of water (0 °C or 32 °F) for two or more years.

Ravine is a very small valley—almost like a canyon but narrower—which is often the product of streamcutting erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although

Ribbon lake is a long and narrow, finger-shaped lake, usually found in a glacial trough. Its formation begins when a glacier moves over an area containing alternate bands of hard and soft bedrock. The sharp-edged boulders that are picked up by the glacier and carried at the bottom of the glacier erode the softer rock more quickly by abrasion, thus creating a hollow called a rock basin. On either side of the rock basin, the more resistant rock is eroded less and these outcrops of harder rock are known as rock bars, which act as dams between which rainwater may accumulate after the retreat of the ice age, filling up the rock basin and creating a ribbon lake.

Rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids. The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The scientific study of rocks is called petrology, and petrology is an essential component of geology.

Ridge is a geological feature that features a continuous elevational crest for some distance. Ridges are usually termed hills or mountains as well, depending on size.

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. Bow River and Castle Mountain Alberta Canada

The lowest elevation area of a perennial snow field on high terrain, such as a mountain range. The climatic snow line is the point above which snow and ice cover the ground throughout the year. The actual snow line may seasonally be significantly lower.

Scree also called talus, is a term given to an accumulation of broken rock fragments at the base of crags, mountain cliffs, or valley shoulders. Landforms associated with these materials are sometimes called scree slopes or talus piles.

Serac (originally from Swiss French sérac, a type of ricotta-like whey cheese) is a block or column of ice formed by intersecting crevasses on a glacier. Often house-sized or larger, they are dangerous to mountaineers since they may topple with little warning. Even when stabilized by persistent cold weather, they can be an impediment to glacier travel.

Snow patch is a geomorphological pattern of snow and firn accumulation which lies on the surface longer time than other seasonal snow cover. There are two types to distinguish; seasonal snow patches and perennial snow patches. Seasonal patches usually melt during the late summer but later than rest of the snow.

Spur is a subsidiary summit of a mountain. By definition, spurs have low topographic prominence, as they are lower than their parent summit and are closely connected to them on the same ridgeline.

Stream is a body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Depending on its locale or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to as a branch, brook, beck, burn, creek, kill, lick, rill, river syke, bayou, rivulet, streamage, wash, or run.

Subalpine refers to the biotic zone immediately below tree line around the world. Species that occur in this zone depend on the location of the zone on the Earth.

Tree line or timberline is the edge of the habitat at which trees are capable of growing. Beyond the tree line, they are unable to grow because of inappropriate environmental conditions (usually cold temperatures, insufficient air pressure, or lack of moisture).

Trim line, also written as trimline, is a clear line on the side of a valley formed by a glacier. The line marks the most recent highest extent of the glacier. The line may be visible due to changes in color to the rock or to changes in vegetation on either side of the line.

In geology, a valley or dale is a depression with predominant extent in one direction. A very deep river valley may be called a canyon or gorge.

Valley Glacier: an alpine glacier flowing in a valley. In mountainous regions, glacial flow is restricted by the valley walls. These glaciers start in cirques and extend down-valley from the cirque.

Wind scoop Hollow around rock outcrop caused by wind erosion or enhanced ablation.

Watershed is, in simplest terms, the area of land from which precipitation or surface water flow is drained into a receiving water body. The term is roughly analogous to "drainage basin", and are often used either interchangeably. While primarily describing the geologic/geographic drainage patterns of water, a more holistic view of the word watershed incorporates all the biotic and abiotic communities and processes contained in the drainage basin.