Processes of ‘hummocky moraine’ formation in the Gaick, Scotland : insights into the ice-marginal dynamics of a Younger Dryas plateau icefield

• Published in: Boreas
• Main Authors: Chandler, Benjamin M.P., Lukas, Sven, Boston, Clare M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: John Wiley & Sons Inc. 2020
• Subjects: Geosciences; Multidisciplinary; Norway; glacier; Ice cap; Iceland
• Online Access: https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/5e03b579-1941-437a-9647-516926d5887d; https://doi.org/10.1111/bor.12426

Younger Dryas ice-marginal (‘hummocky’) moraines in Scotland represent valuable terrestrial archives that can be used to obtain important information on ice-marginal dynamics and glacier thermal regimes during a period of rapid climatic change. In this paper, we present detailed sedimentological studies of Younger Dryas ice-marginal moraines in the Gaick, central Scotland, the former site of a spatially restricted plateau icefield. Exposures demonstrate that moraines in the Gaick represent terrestrial ice-contact fans, with evidence of proglacial and subglacial glaciotectonization, as reported elsewhere in Scotland. The exposures also reveal the influence of local hydrogeological conditions, with pressurization of the groundwater system leading to the formation of hydrofracture fills within some moraines. Clast shape analysis shows that all the moraines contain debris consistent with transport in the subglacial traction zone. The sedimentological data, and the planform arrangement of the moraines as nested arcs or chevrons, indicate that retreat of the Younger Dryas Gaick Icefield outlets was incremental and oscillatory. This evidence strongly suggests a mainly temperate thermal regime and short glacier response times, but with narrow cold-ice zones near the margins facilitating the elevation of basal debris to the glacier surface. Analogous glaciodynamic regimes occur at modern ice-cap and plateau icefield outlets in Iceland and Norway, although there are significant differences in the nature of ice-marginal deposition. The glaciodynamic signature recorded by moraines in the Gaick has allowed us to shed new light on the ice-marginal dynamics and thermal regime of one of the most easterly Younger Dryas icefields in Scotland.