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In river morphology, a plunge pool is a (small) lake formed at the bottom of a waterfall.

In German, there exists the word Gumpe, apparently from Bavarian. From the German language Wikipedia, a Gumpe is a überwiegend beckenartige Strudeltopfe, die von Sturzbächen in den felsigen Untergrund eines Bachbetts erodiert werden, which may be translated as predominantly basin-like [swirl pot] eroded by torrents into the rocky bedrock of a streambed (I'm not sure how to translate Strudeltopf). The sources cited by Wikipedia are from 1887 and 1935.

The description of Gumpe seems quite similar to the description of a plunge pool, but the German language Wikipedia article on Gumpe has only one interlanguage link, to a Bavarian entry. The English language Wikipedia article on plunge pool has no interlanguage link to German.

Is a Gumpe the same as a plunge pool or is there a difference? Is a Gumpe a specific type of plunge pool, or something quite different?

gerrit
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  • Interestingly, Google Translate, for what it is worth, does not translate Gumpe into English, but its translation of plunge pool in English is Tauchbecken in German. I'm not aware of different types of plunge pools – Fred Jun 15 '22 at 23:16
  • @Fred Tauchbecken seems to be used for swimming pools one can plunge in, not for small lakes formed at the bottom of a waterfall... – gerrit Jun 16 '22 at 07:54
  • It seems to be a special form of Giant's kettles. – Erik Jun 17 '22 at 07:44
  • @Erik Are you sure? My colleague uses Gumpe for stream pools on Corsica, which I don't think are glacial. But it's possible he's using it wrongly. – gerrit Jun 17 '22 at 07:51

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