Glacial Cirques of the Iberian Peninsula, 1505 Mapped Features

1505 mapped glacial cirques across the Iberian Peninsula, excluding the Pyrenees. The dataset was created by Ramón Pellitero through manual interpretation in Google Earth and morphometric analysis using the ACME tool. It includes two shapefiles representing cirque surfaces and their lowest closure points.

Use Cases

• Train models to identify glacial cirques based on morphometric parameters derived from the shapefiles.
• Analyze the spatial distribution and density of cirques to infer past glacial extents and climate conditions.
• Conduct comparative morphometric studies of cirque geometry using the polygon and point data.

Strengths

• Contains 1505 individually mapped glacial cirques, providing a substantial sample for analysis.
• Includes two complementary geospatial data layers (polygons and points) for each feature.
• Methodology is described, citing the use of the ACME tool (Spagnolo et al. 2017) for morphometric analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for the shapefile attribute tables is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The dataset excludes the Pyrenees, a major glacial region on the peninsula.

Provenance

Source

figshare, author Ramón Pellitero.

Collection Method

Mapping via direct interpretation in Google Earth and use of bibliographic references, followed by conversion to shapefile format and analysis with the ACME tool using an ALOS PALSAR DEM.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-02 16:10:14; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Iberian Peninsula (excluding the Pyrenees).