The Beartooth Mountains of Montana-Wyoming are principally composed of Archean-aged metamorphic rocks. The valley seen here is a depression along the southern edge of a high plateau having a subalpine to alpine tundra landscape. The depression was eroded by an alpine glacier during the Pleistocene Ice Age - such depressions are called cirques. The body of water is Gardner Lake. A lake in a cirque is called a tarn.
Locality: Gardner Lake overlook, view from Route 212 (= Beartooth Highway), Beartooth Mountains, northwestern Wyoming, USA
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