Terminal moraine

A terminal moraine or moraine is a mound -like wall ( moraine ) of rock material at the end of a glacier. A terminal moraine marks the line of the glacier or a maximum thrust of a glacier or arrest. It is part of the Glacial series.

Formation

End moraines are formed when stopped at the end of a glacier melting and Eisnachschub the scale. The edge of the ice is then stable over time. The ice itself moves but still.

As the ice margin not straight runs but disintegrates into individual praise ( glaciers ), and end moraines have such praise like course. ( On the concept Gletscherlobus see foreland glaciers. ) The point of contact between two praise is also called Endmoränengabel. There usually are particularly strongly pronounced moraines and glacier great gates, from which the Sander were poured.

Satzendmoränen

From the glacier ausschmelzendes material is deposited at the ice margin and builds gradually as the terminal moraine Satzendmoräne on. By leaving meltwater fine material is usually washed away, so that the deposits of Satzendmoränen usually are coarse (gravel, stones, boulders ). Interposed can also be found finer material (sand ) or glacial till. Very coarse Endmoränenmaterial is called block package. In the front area of ​​a glacier deposited material normally forms Satzendmoränen.

Stauchendmoränen and moraines

Stauchendmoränen, which are often characterized by very high relief energy, arise when, appliance by the pressure of an advancing glacier older material that was deposited in front of the glacier front under horizontal and vertical pressure and is compressed and raised there. Exist, depending on the nature of the older material Stauchendmoränen from various sediments. Most are older glacial deposits such as sand, Eisstauseesedimenten or older boulder clay.

The compression of the subsoil but is not bound to the ice edge and thus to a terminal moraine. Even beneath an active glacier, within the later ground moraine, material can be intensely disturbed by the applied pressure.

In technical terms, therefore, the more neutral term moraine has prevailed.

Eisrandlagen

Since especially in the northern central Europe have Endmoränenzüge regular gaps, there has been naturalized in the jargon, the term ice stage, which includes both moraines and other landforms that make up the former ice margin can be reconstructed.

Examples

An example of a terminal moraine of the Weichsel ice age is around the town of Chorin (Brandenburg), about 50 km northeast of Berlin. A terminal moraine is saaleeiszeitliche example, the Lower Saxony Goehrde - Drawehn - ridge ( = Osthannoversche terminal moraine ) between the Lüneburg Heath and the Wendland. Another relic of the Saale glaciation is located in the north German district of Osnabrück, in Ankum height. Those ice stage was called here " Rehburger phase ".

• Also in the north of Germany there are many terminal moraines that were minted from the glaciers of the north. In Schleswig -Holstein and Mecklenburg- Vorpommern, you can see this very clearly as for example in the cities Ahrensbok or miter.

The entire transition region of the Alps in the Alpenvorländer is dominated by the marginal moraines of the great glacier advances.

• At Otterfing south of Munich in southern Germany one finds well-trained moraines
• The house jerk in Upper Austria, a prominent range of hills, is up almost 400 m high terminal moraine of the Hallstatt glacier in its greatest extent

There are also high alpine moraines. A striking example is found at the end of the valley of the Fornogletschers, near Maloja, Upper Engadine, Grisons, Switzerland.