Drumlin

Drumlins occur in various shapes and sizes,[3] including symmetrical (about the long axis), spindle, parabolic forms, and transverse asymmetrical forms. Generally, they are elongated, oval-shaped hills, with a long axis parallel to the orientation of ice flow and with an up-ice (stoss) face that is generally steeper than the down-ice (lee) face.[4]

Drumlins are typically 250 to 1,000 meters long and between 120 and 300 meters wide.[5] Drumlins generally have a length:width ratio of between 1.7 and 4.1[5] and it has been suggested that this ratio can indicate the velocity of the glacier. That is, since ice flows in laminar flow, the resistance to flow is frictional and depends on area of contact; thus, a more elongated drumlin would indicate a lower velocity and a shorter one would indicate a higher velocity.[6]

Drumlins and drumlin clusters are glacial landforms composed primarily of glacial till. They form near the margin of glacial systems, and within zones of fast flow deep within ice sheets, and are commonly found with other major glacially-formed features (including tunnel valleys, eskers, scours, and exposed bedrock erosion).[7]

Drumlins are often in drumlin fields of similarly shaped, sized and oriented hills. Many Pleistocene drumlin fields are observed to occur in a fan-like distribution.[8] The long axis of each drumlin is parallel to the direction of movement of the glacier at the time of formation.[9] By looking at aerial photos of these fields you can easily track the glacier's progress through the landscape. The Múlajökull drumlins of Hofsjökull are also arrayed in a splayed fan distribution around an arc of 180°.[10] This field surrounds the current lobe of the glacier and provide a view into the past, showing the previous extent and motion of the ice.

Drumlins may comprise layers of clay, silt, sand, gravel and boulders in various proportions; perhaps indicating that material was repeatedly added to a core, which may be of rock or glacial till. Alternatively, drumlins may be residual, with the landforms resulting from erosion of material between the landforms. The dilatancy of glacial till was invoked as a major factor in drumlin formation.[11] In other cases, drumlin fields include drumlins made up entirely of hard bedrock (e.g. granite or well-lithified limestone).[12] These drumlins cannot be explained by the addition of soft sediment to a core. Thus, accretion and erosion of soft sediment by processes of subglacial deformation do not present unifying theories for all drumlins—some are composed of residual bedrock.

There are two main theories of drumlin formation.[13] The first, constructional, suggests that they form as sediment is deposited from subglacial waterways laden with till including gravel, clay, silt, and sand. As the drumlin forms, the scrape and flow of the glacier continues around it and the material deposited accumulates, the clasts align themselves with direction of flow.[14] It is because of this process that geologists are able to determine how the drumlin formed using till fabric analysis, the study of the orientation and dip of particles within a till matrix. [15] By examining the till particles and plotting their orientation and dip on a stereonet, scientists are able to see if there is a correlation between each clast and the overall orientation of the drumlin: the more similar in orientation and dip of the clasts throughout the drumlin, the more likely it is that they had been deposited during the formation process. If the opposite is true, and there doesn't seem to be a link between the drumlin and the till, it suggests that the other main theory of formation could be true.

The second theory proposes that drumlins form by erosion of material from an unconsolidated bed. Erosion under a glacier in the immediate vicinity of a drumlin can be on the order of a meter's depth of sediment per year, depending heavily on the shear stress acting on the ground below the glacier from the weight of the glacier itself, with the eroded sediment forming a drumlin as it is repositioned and deposited.[16]

A hypothesis that catastrophic sub-glacial floods form drumlins by deposition or erosion challenges conventional explanations for drumlins.[17] It includes deposition of glaciofluvial sediment in cavities scoured into a glacier bed by subglacial meltwater, and remnant ridges left behind by erosion of soft sediment or hard rock by turbulent meltwater. This hypothesis requires huge, subglacial meltwater floods, each of which would raise sea level by tens of centimetres in a few weeks. Studies of erosional forms in bedrock at French River, Ontario, Canada provide evidence for such floods.

The recent retreat of a marginal outlet glacier of Hofsjökull in Iceland[18] exposed a drumlin field with more than 50 drumlins ranging from 90 to 320 m (300–1,050 ft) in length, 30 to 105 m (100–340 ft) in width, and 5 to 10 m (16–33 ft) in height. These formed through a progression of subglacial depositional and erosional processes, with each horizontal till bed within the drumlin created by an individual surge of the glacier.[10] The above theory for the formation of these Icelandic drumlins best explains one type of drumlin. However, it does not provide a unifying explanation of all drumlins. For example, drumlin fields including drumlins composed entirely of hard bedrock cannot be explained by deposition and erosion of unconsolidated beds.[12] Furthermore, hairpin scours around many drumlins are best explained by the erosive action of horseshoe vortices around obstacles in a turbulent boundary layer.[19][20]

Recently formed drumlins often incorporate a thin "A" soil horizon (often referred to as "'topsoil'" which accumulated after formation) and a thin "Bw" horizon (commonly referred to as "'subsoil'"). The "C" horizon, which shows little evidence of being affected by soil forming processes (weathering), is close to the surface, and may be at the surface on an eroded drumlin. Below the C horizon the drumlin consists of multiple beds of till deposited by lodgment and bed deformation. On drumlins with longer exposure (e.g. in the Lake Ontario drumlin field in New York State) soil development is more advanced, for example with the formation of clay-enriched "Bt" horizons.[10]

• Crag and tail, a similar formation, with a more resilient core (generally composed of igneous or metamorphic rock)
• Glacial landform – Landform created by the action of glaciers
• Landform – Feature of the solid surface of a planetary body
• Lincoln Hills
• Ribbed moraines – Landform of ridges deposited by a glacier or ice sheet transverse to ice flow
• Roche moutonnée – Rock formation created by the passing of a glacier
• Sediment – Particulate solid matter that is deposited on the surface of land

• Easterbrook, Don J. (1999). Surface Processes and Landforms, 2nd Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 347–350. ISBN 0-13-860958-6.
• Grotzinger, John; Jordan, Tom (2010). Understanding Earth; 6th Edition. New York, NY: W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 586. ISBN 978-1-4292-1951-8.
• Tarbuck, Edward J.; Frederick K. Lutgens (2002). Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geography. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. pp. 347–350. ISBN 0-13-092025-8.
• Trenhaile, Alan (2007). Geomorphology: A Canadian Perspective. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press. pp. 183–6. ISBN 978-0-19-542474-4.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Drumlin.

• Diagrams of an idealized drumlin
• Drumlin field, northwestern Manitoba, image from Geological Survey of Canada Canadian Landscapes Photo Collection
• Word of the day defines drumlin.
• www.academia.edu/5351696/_EN_Ice_age_ice_sheets_the_gravitational_collapse_water-ice_deluge_and_their_consequences_part_one_drumlins
• French River: Ice Age Outburst on YouTube