Athabasca Glacier, Canada – a field example of subglacial ice and till erosion?

• Main Author: Hart, Jane K.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: Canada; glacier*
• Online Access: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/55420/

The Athabasca Glacier, resting on a rigid bed, provides an excellent example of subglacialice and till erosion. The presence of a thin mobile till layer is shown by the presence of flutes, saturated till layer, push moraines and ploughed boulders. Cross-cutting striations, v-shaped striations and reversed stoss-and-lee clasts are indicative of clasts rotating within this layer. As the till moves it erodes the bedrock and clasts within it. A combination of erosion by ice and till produces stoss-and-lee-clasts and generates striations on flutes and embedded clasts, as well as eroding the bedrock into a continuum of smoothed, rounded and streamlined forms.