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What is Orienteering?     
Part 8 of 9:       Re-entrant


What is a "Reentrant"?


Apart from a few geologists, only orienteers regularly use the English word "re-entrant" (or reentrant) to describe a landform.

A reentrant appears on the map as a U or V shape in the contour lines, pointing back into a hillside rather than sticking out of the hill (as would a spur). So a reentrant is a small valley, the center of which would collect water and funnel it downhill (if it were raining hard). This portion of a map includes several reentrants, three of which are circled. The west-most is a small, v-shaped reentrant, while the two eastern examples are broad and somewhat shallow.


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This tutorial was copied and modified from: Heather Williams' "What Is Orienteering"