Monday, February 28, 2011

Albion Basin


High in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah is a former glacier cirque or a bowl-shaped depression on the side of a mountain. From Wikipedia, "A cirque (French for "circus") or corrie (from Scottish Gaelic coire meaning a "kettle") is an amphitheatre-like valley head, formed at the head of a valley glacier by erosion. The concave amphitheatre shape is open on the downhill side corresponding to the flatter area of the stage, while the cupped seating section is generally steep cliff-like slopes down which ice and glaciated debris combine and converge from 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 experiences somewhat greater erosion forces, and is most often scooped out somewhat below the level of cirque's low-side outlet (stage) and its down slope (backstage) valley. If the cirque is subject to seasonal melting, the floor of the cirque most often forms a tarn (small lake) behind the Moraine and glacial till damming the outlet.

This particular area is really a series of cirques called Albion Basin. Interestingly, the word "albion" is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain.

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