Petrographical Analysis of Warthian Fuvioglacial Gravels as a Tool to Trace the Source Area – A Case Study From Central Poland

• Main Authors: Wachecka-Kotkowska, Lucyna, Górska-Zabielska, Maria
• Other Authors: Wachecka-Kotkowska Lucyna, University of Łódź, Department of Geomorphology and Palaeogeography, Faculty of Geographical Sciences, Górska-Zabielska Maria, Adam Mickiewicz University, Institute of Geoecology and Geoinformation, [e-mail]
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 2014
• Subjects: gravel petrography; indicator erratics; fluvioglacial deposits; Warthian stadial; central Poland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11089/8895

The petrographical features of the medium- and coarse-grained gravels (4-10 mm and 20-60 mm, respectively) of weathered and fresh (unweathered) deposits indicate, in combination with so-called indicator and statistical erratics, that two glacial lobes joined in the borderland of the Polish Lowlands and Uplands. Lower Palaeozoic limestones become less frequent in the finer gravel fraction, whereas crystalline rocks and flints become more frequent. The petrographical analysis of the coarser gravel fraction indicates that the ice sheet advanced from the NE to NNW (the Widawka lobe) and from the NE to ENE (the Rawka, Pilica and Luciąża lobes). The source areas of the gravel deposited by the Warthian ice sheet were magmatic and sedimentary areas of both the Baltic and the SE Sweden basins. National Science Centre project ‘Morphogenesis of the area between Radomsko, Przedbórz and Piotrków Trybunalski as evidence of the determinants, course and role of the youngest glacial events of the borderland of central Poland’s Lowlands and Uplands’ (N N306 721140; 2011–2013)