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A cirque stairway or sequence of cirque steps is a stepped succession of glacially eroded rock basins.Whittow, John (1984). ''Dictionary of Physical Geography''. London: Penguin, 1984, p. 95. . Their individual formation is that of a
cirque A (; from the Latin word ') is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from Scottish Gaelic , meaning a pot or cauldron) and (; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform ...
. These steps are arranged one above and behind the other at different heights in the terrain and caused by the same geomorphodynamic processes, albeit resulting in different landform shapes depending on the type of rock and the depositional circumstances involved. The lower step often lacks the steep headwalls typical of cirques.Leser, Hartmut, ed. (2005). ''Wörterbuch Allgemeine Geographie'', 13th ed., dtv, Munich, p. 915 (''Stufenkar''). . A well-known example is the
Zastler Loch The Zastler Loch or Zastler Cirque (german: Zastlerkar) on the northern side of the Feldberg summit in the Black Forest is the highest cirque in the German Central Uplands. It forms the head of the Zastler valley, through which the Zastlerbach s ...
below the summit of the Feldberg, the highest mountain of the
Black Forest The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is t ...
in
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
.


References

{{geology-stub Glacial landforms