Geology

Glacial Valleys or Troughs: Erosional Landforms

Glacial Valleys or Troughs: Erosional Landforms

Glacial Valleys or Troughs: Erosional Landforms

A valley is a depressed area of land between mountains or hills. Glaciated valleys are trough-like and U-shaped with broad floors and relatively smooth, and steep sides. The valleys may contain littered debris or debris shaped as moraines with swampy appearance. There may be lakes gouged out of the rocky floor or formed by debris within the valleys. There can be hanging valleys at an elevation on one or both sides of the main glacial valley. The faces of divides or spurs of such hanging valleys opening into main glacial valleys are quite often truncated to give them an appearance like triangular facets. Very deep glacial troughs filled with seawater and making up shorelines (in high latitudes) are called fiords/fiords.

Glacial valley, also called glacial trough, watercourse valley that has been glaciated, in general to a typical catenary, or U-shaped, cross section. U-shaped valleys happen in many parts of the world and are distinctive features of mountain glaciation. These glacial troughs may be more than a few thousand feet deep and tens of miles long.