The Geography of the Region about Devil's Lake and the Dalles of the Wisconsin: With Some Notes on Its Surface GeologySalisbury, Rollin D.
Science
The Geography of the Region about Devil's Lake and the Dalles of the Wisconsin: With Some Notes on Its Surface Geology
Salisbury, Rollin D.
Physical geography; Wisconsin -- Description and travel
It is to be kept in mind that subglacial drainage was operative during
the advance of an ice sheet, during its maximum extension, and during
its retreat, and that during all these stages it was effecting its
appropriate results. It will be readily seen, however, that all deposits
made by subglacial waters, were subject to modification or destruction
or burial, through the agency of the ice, and that those made during the
advance of the ice were less likely to escape than those made during its
maximum extension or retreat.
RELATIONS OF STRATIFIED TO UNSTRATIFIED DRIFT.
When it is remembered that extraglacial and subglacial waters were
active at all stages of an ice sheet's history, giving rise, or tending
to give rise to all the phases of stratified drift enumerated above;
when it is remembered that the ice of several epochs affected much of
the drift-covered country; and when it is remembered further that the
edge of the ice both during advance and retreat was subject to
oscillation, and that each advance was likely to bury the stratified
drift last deposited, beneath unstratified, it will be seen that the
stratified drift and the unstratified had abundant opportunity to be
associated in all relationships and in all degrees of intimacy, and that
the relations of the one class of drift to the other may come to be very
complex.
As a result of edge oscillation, it is evident that stratified drift may
alternate with unstratified many times in a formation of drift
deposited during a single ice epoch, and that two beds of till,
separated by a bed of stratified drift, do not necessarily represent two
distinct glacial epochs. The extent of individual beds of stratified
drift, either beneath the till or inter-bedded with it, may not be
great, though their aggregate area and their aggregate volume is very
considerable. It is to be borne in mind that the ice, in many places,
doubtless destroyed all the stratified drift deposited in advance on the
territory which it occupied later, and that in others it may have left
only patches of once extensive sheets. This may help to explain why it
so frequently happens that a section of drift at one point shows many
layers of stratified drift, while another section close by, of equal
depth, and in similar relationships, shows no stratified material
whatsoever.
Such deposits as were made by superglacial streams during the advance of
the ice must likewise have been delivered on the land surface, but would
have been subsequently destroyed or buried, becoming in the latter case,
submorainic. This would be likely to be the fate of all such
superglacial gravels as reached the edge of the ice up to the time of
its maximum advance.
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