The first landform formed by a glacier is the corrie. This is a circular rock hollow (hence the alternative name of cirque used by some geographers), usually located high on the mountainside, with a steep and rocky backwall up to 200 metres high in the UK, but much higher in the Alps.
Although most of the corrie is ringed by steep rocks leading to sharp rocky ridges, the front is open with nothing more than a small rock lip on the surface.
The hollow is typically filled with a small round like, called a tarn, after the ice has melted.
Corries begin where snowfields (called neves), which accumulate below the mountaintops, form ice and grow.
As with many landforms, it is necessary to refer to several different processes in order to explain the formation of the corrie
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