page_title: Cirque
section_title: Notable cirques
hierarchical_section_title: Cirque / Notable cirques
caption_attribution_description: Tuckerman Ravine with Spring Skiing
context_page_description: A cirque is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie and cwm. A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform arising from fluvial erosion.
  The concave shape of a glacial cirque is open on the downhill side, while the cupped section is generally steep. Cliff-like slopes, down which ice and glaciated debris combine and converge, form the three or more higher sides. The floor of the cirque ends up bowl-shaped, as it is the complex convergence zone of combining ice flows from multiple directions and their accompanying rock burdens. Hence, it experiences somewhat greater erosion forces and is most often overdeepened below the level of the cirque's low-side outlet and its down-slope valley. If the cirque is subject to seasonal melting, the floor of the cirque most often forms a tarn behind a dam, which marks the downstream limit of the glacial overdeepening. The dam itself can be composed of moraine, glacial till, or a lip of the underlying bedrock.
  The fluvial cirque or makhtesh, found in karst landscapes, is formed by intermittent river flow cutting through layers of limestone and chalk leaving sheer cliffs.
context_section_description: Australia
  Blue Lake Cirque, New South Wales, Australia
  Asia
  Chandra Taal, Himachal Pradesh, India
  Cirque Valley, Hindu Kush, Pakistan
  Western Cwm, Khumbu Himal, Nepal
  Europe (glacial)
  Circo de Gredos, Sierra de Gredos, Spain
  Cirque de Gavarnie, Pyrenees, France
  Cirque d'Estaubé, Pyrenees, France
  Cirque de Troumouse, Pyrenees, France
  Cirque du Fer à Cheval, Savoy Alps, France
  Maritsa cirque, Rila Mountain, Bulgaria
  Malyovitsa cirque, Rila Mountain, Bulgaria
  Seven Rila Lakes cirques, Rila Mountain, Bulgaria
  Banderishki cirque, Pirin Mountain, Bulgaria
  Coire an t-Sneachda, Grampian Mountains in the Scottish Highlands
  Śnieżne Kotły, Karkonosze, Poland
  Coumshingaun Lake, County Waterford, Ireland 
  Europe (fluvial)
  Cirque de Navacelles, Grande Causses, France
  Cirque du Bout du Monde, Grande Causses, France
  Cirque du Bout du Monde, Burgundy, France
  North America
  Cirque of the Towers, Wyoming, United States
  Iceberg Cirque, Montana, United States
  Summit Lake cirque, and others on Mount Evans, Colorado, United States
  Great Basin and others on Mount Katahdin, Maine, United States
  Great Gulf, New Hampshire, United States
  Tuckerman Ravine, New Hampshire, United States
caption: Tuckerman Ravine cirque, headwall and spring skiers, New Hampshire
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