Consider the following statements about glacial landforms:

Question

Consider the following statements about glacial landforms:

Statement 1: Hanging valleys are often found opening into main glacial valleys at higher elevations.

Statement 2: Spurs of such hanging valleys are frequently truncated into triangular facets.

Which of the following Statements is/are Correct?

1. A. Only 1
2. B. Only 2
3. C. 1 and 2 are correct (Correct answer)
4. D. Neither 1 nor 2 are correct

Correct Answer

Option C — 1 and 2 are correct

Detailed Solution & Explanation

The correct answer is 1 and 2 are correct.

Key Points

• Both glacial-landform statements hold. Hanging valleys are tributary valleys that open into the deeper main glacial valley at a higher elevation (often forming waterfalls).
• Their spurs are truncated by glacial erosion into triangular facets.
• Both describe genuine features of glaciated terrain, so neither can be rejected — 'both correct' is right.
• When two related earth-science statements each state a standard textbook fact, check each against the definition rather than pairing them off.

Additional Information

• A glacier erodes by plucking (freezing onto rock and tearing blocks away) and abrasion (grinding with embedded debris), which together deepen a valley into a U-shape — in contrast to the V-shaped valley cut by a river.
• Hanging valleys form because a tributary glacier is smaller and erodes less deeply than the trunk glacier; when the ice melts, the tributary valley is left perched above the main floor, commonly producing a waterfall.
• Truncated spurs are the blunted ends of ridges that once projected into the valley, sheared off by the advancing ice into triangular facets.
• Other erosional glacial landforms worth listing together: cirque (armchair hollow), arête (knife-edge ridge between two cirques), horn (pyramidal peak, as with the Matterhorn), roche moutonnée and fjord. Depositional ones include moraines, drumlins, eskers and outwash plains.