Moraine
Moraine
Moraine is the name for raw glacial debris, the rock that is loosened and carried by glacial ice, then deposited where the ice melts. Moraine has one of the most chaotic characters of any deposit, made up of totally unsorted rocks with no sorting whatsoever--just dropped when the ice melts. Terrains with moraine are hard for man to use, because there are rocks of all sizes everywhere.
Moraine or Till is completely unsorted and angular materials dropped by melting glaciers. Everything from dust to big boulders all jumbled together. Very difficult to farm on a soil on this kind of substrate. When water runs over moraine size sorting happens and we get outwash instead.
NSIDC.org
moraine till in Svalbard, Norway
(photo by Dr. Karen Kleinspehn)
jesse.usra.edu
Lateral and terminal moraines of a valley glacier, Bylot Island, Canada.
Source: Natural Resources Canada Unattributed photograph. Copyright Terrain Sciences Division, Geological Survey of Canada.)
