cirque
SIRK
A bowl-shaped mountain basin carved by glacial erosion, steep-walled on three sides and open on the fourth, often holding a lake at its floor. An amphitheater made by ice over millennia.
Etymology
French, from the Latin circus — circle, ring. The geological use emerged in the 19th century as Alpine scientists named what the glaciers had sculpted.
Notes
The lake at the bottom of a cirque is a tarn.
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