Glacial DepositsThe ice of a glacier melts when a valley glacier reaches lower elevations or whey a change in clime melts continental ice sheets. When a glacier melts, all of the material accumulated in the ice is deposited. Glacial deposits usually can be identified easily. For example, large boulders, called erratics, are transported by glaciers. The composition of erratics usually differs from that of the bedrock over whey they now lie.
| Various land features are formed by glacial drift- the general term for all sediments deposited by a glacier. One type of glacier drift, called till is made of unsorted deposits of rock material. Till is deposited from sediments scraped off by the base of the glacier or is left behind when the glacial ice melts. Another type of glacial drift is called stratified drift. Stratified drift is material that has been sorted and deposited in layers by streams flowing from the melted ice, or meltwater. Click on the tabs below do learn more about till deposits and stratified drift.
Till DepositsStratified Drift |