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Seismic Reflection Study of Recessional Moraines beneath Lake Superior and Their Relationship to Regional Deglaciation1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

C. W. Landmesser ,
T. C. Johnson  and
R. J. Wold
C. W. Landmesser
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics and Limnological Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
T. C. Johnson
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics and Limnological Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
R. J. Wold
Affiliation:
U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado 80225
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Abstract

Approximately 8000 km of continuous seismic reflection profiles throughout Lake Superior were examined for evidence of recessional moraines and other ice-margin deposits associated with the retreat of late Wisconsin ice. These features are correlated with the record of glacial-lake evolution in western Lake Superior. An offlapping sequence of glacial and glacial-lacustrine sediments overlying bedrock is recognized in west-central Lake Superior that is progressively younger to the northeast. The sequence underlies more recent glaical-lacustrine and postglacial sediments. Four facies are recognized on the basis of geomorphologic and acoustic properties and are interpreted to represent a southwest-to-northeast assemblage of: proglacial stratified drift (facies A), drift in major end moraines (facies B), till deposited as glacial retreat resumed, or possibly late-stage ablation till (facies C), and basal till (facies D). The prominent moraines of facies B are unusually thick and are believed to mark the ice-margin shorelines of successive major proglacial lakes that formerly occupied parts of western Lake Superior. The moraines are tentatively correlated with Glacial Lake Duluth (unit 1), Glacial Lake Washburn (unit 2), and Glacial Lake Beaver Bay (unit 3), the most prominent of lakes drained via the progressively lower outlets via the Moose Lake/ Brule-St. Croix Rivers, the Huron Mountains, and the Au Train-Whitefish regions, respectively.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , March 1982 , pp. 173 - 190
Copyright
University of Washington

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Footnotes

1

Contribution No. 1044 of The School of Earth Sciences, Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, and Contribution No. 253 of the Limnological Research Center.

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