Glacier-Bed Landforms of The Prairie Region of North America

• Published in: Journal of Glaciology
• Main Authors: Moran, S. R., Clayton, Lee, Hooke, R. Leb, Fenton, M.M, Andriashek, L.D.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1980
• Subjects: Canada; glacier*; Journal of Glaciology
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000015306; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022143000015306

Abstract Two major types of terrain that formed at or near the bed of Pleistocene continental ice sheets are widespread throughout the prairie region of Canada and the United States. These are (1) glacial-thrust blocks and source depressions, and (2) streamlined terrain. Glacial-thrust terrain formed where the glacier was frozen to the substrate and where elevated pore-pressure decreased the shear strength of the substrate to a value less than that applied by the glacier. The marginal zone of ice sheets consisted of a frozen-bed zone, no more than 2–3 km wide in places, within which glacial-thrust blocks are large and angular. Up-glacier from this zone, the thrust blocks are generally smaller and smoothed. Streamlined terrain begins 2–3 km behind known ice-margin positions and extends tens of kilometres up-glacier Streamlined terrain formed in two ways: (1) erosion of the substrate as a consequence of basal sliding in the sub-marginal thawed-bed zone, and (2) erosional smoothing accompanied by emplacement of till in the lee of thrust blocks where they were deposited and subsequently exposed to thawed-bed conditions as a result of further advance of the glacier.