Fluvioglacial Landforms

Question 1

Outwash Plains

Answer 1

A layer of gravel, sand and clay that forms in front of where the snout of the glacier used to be. Meltwater flows out of the glacier, carrying sediment with it.

Sediment is sorted with gravel on the bottom, sand in the middle and clay on top.

Question 2

Kettle Holes

Answer 2

Holes in an outwash plain formed when blocks of ice that have broken off from the front of a glacier get surrounded and partly buried by fluvioglacial deposits and then melt.

Question 3

Kames

Answer 3

Mounds of sand and gravel found on the valley floor. Meltwater streams on top of glaciers collect in depressions and deposit their debris. When the ice melts, the debri is dumped onto the valley floor.

Question 4

Kame Terraces

Answer 4

Piles of deposits left against the valley wall by meltwater streams that run between the glacier and the valley sides.

They look like lateral moraine buy are sorted into layers with gravel at the bottom and sand on top.

Question 5

Eskers

Answer 5

Long, winding ridges of sand and gravel that run in the same direction as the glacier.

They’re deposited by meltwater streams flowing in tunnels underneath the glacier- when the glacier retreats and the stream dries up, the load remains as an esker (which shows you where the glacial tunnel used to be.)

Question 6

Proglacial Lakes, Deltas & Delta Kames

Answer 6

Form in front of glaciers (e.g. when the flow from meltwater streams gets dammed by terminal moraine.)

As meltwater streams flow into a proglacial lake, they slow down and deposit their sediment on the ice, these deposits are known as deltas. When the ice melts, these are dumped on the valley floor, forming delta kames.