glacial valley

American  

[glaysh-uhl val-ee] / ˈgleɪʃ əl ˈvæl i /

noun

glacial valleys plural

1. Physical Geography. a valley shaped like a U rather than a V, carved by the flow of a glacier as it carried rocks and other debris.

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glacial valley Scientific  

1. A steep-sided, U-shaped valley formed by the erosional forces of a moving glacier.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• glacial valleys
  plural

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

glacial valley

The mosquitoes were found in Kjós, a glacial valley to the South West of the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik.

From BBC ● Oct. 22, 2025

The 2020 Elliot Creek tsunami in a glacial valley in British Columbia, for instance, featured a landslide measuring 18 cubic million meters in volume and a tsunami runup of more than 100 meters.

From Science Daily ● May 6, 2024

But in recent years, parts of the route have been moved away from the melting glacial valley to the shoreline.

From New York Times ● May 19, 2022

Yosemite Valley was reopened for the first time in weeks on Tuesday morning, but some visitors were surprised to see a burning hillside along El Portal Road, a key entryway into the famed glacial valley.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2018

As contrasted with the U-shaped glacial valley and the V-shaped valley of normal stream erosion, it might be called rectangular so sharply does the flat valley floor terminate against the steep hillsides.

From Drainage Modifications and Glaciation in the Danbury Region Connecticut State of Connecticut State Geological and Natural History Survey Bulletin No. 30 by Sawyer-Harvey, Ruth