Corrie

This article is about the geographical feature. For other uses, see Corrie (disambiguation).

In geography, a corrie, is a terrain feature created by glaciation in high mountains. The word is an anglicisation of the Gaelic word coire meaning hollow. It is known in Welsh as a cwm (often Anglicized as coomb, or coombe), and the French word cirque is used to denote a very similar geographical feature.

The formation of a corrie

Corries begin as small hollows on a relatively smooth slope.

During the ice ages, snow and ice would gather in these hollows, eroding the floor and walls of the hollow, causing them to get larger and deeper. As the hollows grew, so would it gather more snow and ice which would compact into a small glacier. Eventually, the newly formed glacier cut through the lowest edge of the hollow and continue down the hillside.

Due to the bowl shape of the corrie, water often gathers in corries forming a small loch known as a corrie lochan.

The difference between a corrie and a cirque

As previously stated, the corrie is geologically similar to the French cirque. However, where a corrie is an almost complete bowl beyond which the hill generally slopes quite steeply away, a cirque can also be found at the head of a deep, wide U-shaped valley with a relatively flat floor.

Related glacial features

Two corries formed close to each other can erode the separating rock until it forms a knife-edged ridge known as an arete.

When three or more corries are formed around the summit of a mountain, they can form a horn or pyramidal peak. In some cases, this peak will be made accessible by one or more aretes.