| Abstract: | Glaciation has continued in Antarctica for longer than anywhere else on Earth, so the long-term development of glaciated landforms can be investigated. Complex alpine valley heads up to 36 km wide are found in the Antarctic Peninsula. The largest of these may represent an advanced stage of alpine glaciation, having evolved from the earliest corries which could have developed around the early Oligocene. This study is based on a morphometric analysis of the plan form of 1680 alpine valley heads. This is a much larger sample than used by any previous study. Skewed distributions of dimensional properties (width, length and area) suggest that small corries are continually being added to the population, as older ones are enlarged and some eliminated by coalescence and ice sheet erosion. Very large features are found only in parts of Graham Land and Alexander Island, where lack of high-level ice sheet erosion has allowed the forms of mountain glaciation to dominate the landscape. The attainment of an equilibrium planform shape is suggested by the persistence of an equidimensional form, the development of characteristic or limiting values of other morphometric properties, e.g. planform closure and basin order, and by the intercorrelation of morphometric properties. A combination of branching and coalescence is fundamental in the development of corries. The latter results both in widening, which counteracts the tendency towards lengthening observed by other workers, and also in a limit to basin complexity. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
