CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Emerson, D.
Date : 1977
Title : The surficial geology of the Cooking Lake moraine, east-central Alberta, Canada
Publication : Unpublished M.Sc. thesis. University of Alberta, Edmonton
Issue :
Page(s) : 116 pp
Abstract
The Cooking Lake moraine of east-central Alberta is comprised of two till units which were deposited during two phases of continental ice sheet disintegration. A radiocarbon date of 52,000± 1760 years B.P. on wood taken from above the lower till in the Fort Assiniboine region suggests the older of the two tills to be early Wisconsin in age. A bedrock high, composed of several upper Cretaceous marine facies, forms the nucleus around which breakup of the two ice advances took place. The two tills of the moraine are differentiated on the basis of colour, structure, and clay mineralogy. Both were deposited from ice sheets which moved into the area from the Shield to the north-east. Other analytical data including texture, lithology (1-2 mm and 10-15 cms fractions),"heavy," "light" and trace element mineralogy and carbonate content cannot be used to differentiate the tills of the area. The origins of several till depositional landforms which comprise the physiography of the moraine, are shown on the basis of field evidence to incorporate the theories of Gravenor(1955), Stalker (1960) and Clayton (1967). No correlation was found between the density and relief of prairie mounds over the area with bedrock topography. Radiocarbon dates on shell material taken from superglacial lacustrine sediments indicate that meltwater was present for approximately 2,000 years after ice of the second continental ice sheet had disappeared. Oxygen isotopes of the shells also show that evaporation was intense throughout the area during late glacial to early postglacial time.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology