nunatak

plural nunataks · plural nunataker · alternative nunataq

1. A mountain top or rocky element of a ridge that is surrounded by glacial ice but is not covered by ice; a peak protruding from the surface ice sheet.First known use 1870s

   Only a few lichens and mosses colonize the rocky walls of cirques and nunataks.

   2008, Andrea M. J. Coronato, Fernando Coronato, Elizabeth Mazzoni, Miriam Vásquez, “The Physical Geography of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego”, in J. Rabassa, editor, The Late Cenozoic of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, Elsevier, →ISBN, page 45

   2 more examples

   We made for a slope close to the end of the island or nunatak, where Shackleton must have got up also; it is obviously the only place when you look at it from a commanding rise.

   1922, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913, volume 2, Constable and Company Ltd., page 365

   The peak in whose lee you have chosen to set up your command post is far too regular in shape to be the nunatak you imagine it.

   2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, page 155