Depositional Glacial Features
Depositional glacial features are created when glaciers retreat and leave behind their freight of crushed rock and sand (glacial drift), they created characteristic depositional landforms. Examples include glacial moraines, eskers, and erratics.
Moraine A moraine is a ridge formed by unsorted gravel, sand and boulders carried by the glacier and deposited at the outer edge, or front, of the glacier. Some are only 10 feet high, while others rise 250 to 300 feet. Moraines define the basic route of the Trail, and can be found in many places along it.
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OutwashAn outwash fan is a fan-shaped body of sediments deposited by braided streams from a melting glacier. Sediment locked within the ice of the glacier, gets transported by the streams of meltwater, and deposits on the outwash plain, at the terminus of the glacier. The outwash, the sediment transported and deposited by the meltwater and that makes up the fan, is usually poorly sorted due to the short distance traveled before being deposited.
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