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    Climate changes and hydrological responses in the Tianshan Mountains and the northern Basins
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    Regional‐scale, high‐resolution terrain data permit the study of landforms across south‐central Ontario, where the bed of the former Laurentide Ice Sheet is well exposed and passes downflow from irregular topography on Precambrian Shield highlands to flat‐lying Palaeozoic carbonate bedrock, and thick (50 to >200 m) unconsolidated sediment substrates. Rock drumlins and megagrooves are eroded into bedrock and mega‐scale glacial lineations ( MSGL ) occur on patchy streamlined till residuals in the Algonquin Highlands. Downflow, MSGL pass into juxtaposed rock and drift drumlins on Palaeozoic bedrock and predominantly till‐cored drumlins in areas of thick drift. The Lake Simcoe Moraines, now traceable for more than 80 km across the Peterborough drumlin field ( PDF ), form a distinct morphological boundary: downflow of the moraine system, drumlins are larger, broader and show no indication of subsequent reworking by the ice, whereas upflow of the moraines, a higher degree of complexity in bedform pattern and morphology is distinguished. Discrete radial and/or cross‐cutting flowset terminate at subtle till‐cored moraine ridges downflow of local topographic lows, indicating multiple phases of late‐stage ice flow with strong local topographic steering. More regional‐scale flow switching is evident as NW ‐orientated bedforms modify drumlins south of the Oak Ridges Moraine, and radial flowset emanate from areas within the St. Lawrence and Ottawa River valleys. Most of the drumlins in the PDF formed during an early, regional drumlinization phase of NE – SW flow that followed the deposition of a thick regional till sheet. These were subsequently modified by local‐scale, topographically controlled flows that terminate at till‐cored moraines, providing evidence that the superimposed bedforms record dynamic ice (re)advances throughout the deglaciation of south‐central Ontario. The patterns and relationships of glacial landform distribution and characteristics in south‐central Ontario hold significance for many modern and palaeo‐ice sheets, where similar downflow changes in bed topography and substrate lithology are observed.
    Drumlin
    Bedrock
    Bedform
    Terminal moraine
    Deglaciation
    Citations (8)
    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-water 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 to 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 to 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. This paper has been accepted for publication in full in a future issue of the Journal of Glaciology .
    Landform
    Glacier morphology
    Citations (128)
    A model for sedimentation by surging glaciers is developed from analysis of the debris load, sedimentary processes, and proglacial stratigraphy observed at the Icelandic surging glacier, Eyjabakkajökull. Three aspects of the behavior of surging glaciers explain the distinctive landformsediment associations which they may produce: (a) sudden loading of proglacial sediments during rapid glacier advances results in the buildup of excess pore pressures, failure, and glacitectonic deformation of the overridden sediments; (b) reactivation of stagnant marginal ice by the downglacier propagation of surges is associated with large longitudinal compressive stresses. These induce intense folding and thrusting during which basal debris-rich ice is elevated into an englacial position in a narrow marginal zone. As the terminal area of the glacier stagnates between surges, debris from this ice is released supraglacially and deposited by meltout and sediment flows; (c) local variations in overburden pressure beneath stagnant, crevassed ice cause subglacial lodgement tills, which are sheared during surges, to flow into open crevasses and form “crevasse-fill” ridges.
    Crevasse
    Tidewater glacier cycle
    Glacier ice accumulation
    Rock glacier
    Debris flow
    Glacier morphology
    Glacier terminus
    Citations (122)
    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.
    Landform
    Glacier morphology
    Citations (34)
    Airphoto analyses, geologic field mapping, and study of borehole logs and surficial topographic maps in ice-thrust terrains in central Alberta suggest that all these techniques are needed to identify ice-thrust terrains that may or may not have topographic expressions.Three geomorphological settings susceptible to glaciotectonic deformation are described as escarpment, valley, and plains settings. The bedrock slopes in the escarpment setting ranged from 19 to 51 m/km. The bedrock slopes in the valley setting ranged from 23 to 32 m/km, and the valley was 8.5 km wide between crests and 4 km at the bottom. The bedrock slopes of the plains setting ranged from 2 to 5 m/km.Ice-thrust features are found in topographic troughs in front of an ice sheet where water bodies were impounded. These proglacial water bodies thawed the permafrost in front of the glacier. The disintegration of proglacial permafrost decreased the resistance of subglacial strata to ice thrusting.Ice-thrust features can be expected in areas where local slopes are inclined upglacier toward the former glacier margin, where proglacial water bodies could be impounded, rather than in areas where slopes inclined downglacier away from the glacier margin, where the existence of a proglacial water body is unlikely.
    Escarpment
    Bedrock
    Citations (27)
    Tunnel valleys are large elongated depressions eroded into unconsolidated sediments and bedrock. Tunnel valleys are believed to have been efficient drainage pathways for large volumes of subglacial meltwater, and reflect the interplay between groundwater flow and variations in the hydraulic conductivity of the substrate, and basal meltwater production and associated water pressure variations at the ice-bed interface. Tunnel valleys are therefore an important component of the subglacial hydrological system. Three-dimensional modelling of geophysical and lithological data has revealed numerous buried valleys eroded into the bedrock unconformity in northeast Alberta, many of which are interpreted to be tunnel valleys. Due to the very high data density used in this modelling, the morphology, orientation and internal architecture of several of these tunnel valleys have been determined. The northeast Alberta buried tunnel valleys are similar to the open tunnel valleys described along the former margins of the southern Laurentide Ice Sheet. They have high depth to width ratios, with undulating, low gradient longitudinal profiles. Many valleys start and end abruptly, and occur as solitary, straight to slightly sinuous incisions, or form widespread anastomosing networks. Typically, these valleys are between 0.5 and 3 km wide and 10 and 30 m deep, although the depth of incision along some thalwegs exceeds 100 m. Several valleys extend for up to 60 km, but most are between 10 and 30 km long. Valley fills comprise a range of lithofacies, including stacked sequences of diamict, glaciofluvial sands and gravels and glaciolacustrine silts and clays. Displaced bedrock, presumably of glaciotectonic origin, also occurs within several anastomosing valleys. Several channel bodies are exposed along a number of valley sections suggesting progressive valley development through repeated cycles of sediment discharge. Cut-and-fill structures that are capped by fine-grained sequences of rippled sand and mud-rich drapes within these channel bodies suggest unstable flow regimes within the valley and the discharge of sediment-laden basal meltwater under flood-like conditions followed by wane flow events or periods of lower meltwater discharge, likely concomitant with localized modification by glacial ice. Basal meltwater is inferred to have been released as episodic jökulhlaups beneath the western Laurentide Ice Sheet, which at times re-used existing valley systems, which were spatially and temporally stable features, and at other times incised new valleys.
    Meltwater
    Bedrock