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

Inflected Forms

noun

• glacial valleys
  plural

Example Sentences

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

In a line between our elevated position and the distant rocky outcrops the ice fell in a steep descent to a broad, glacial valley, undulating and in places traversed by torn masses of serac-ice.

From The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 by Mawson, Douglas, Sir