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ESKER (O. Irish eiscir)

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Originally appearing in Volume V09, Page 769 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ESKER (O. Irish eiscir) , a See also:local name for See also:long mounds of glacial See also:gravel frequently met with in See also:Ireland. Eskers (the See also:Swedish dsar) are among the occasionally puzzling See also:relics of the See also:British glacial See also:period. They See also:wind from See also:side to side across glaciated See also:country and have evidently been formed by channels upon or under the See also:ice. " Where streams of considerable See also:size See also:form tunnels under or in the ice these may become more or less filled with See also:wash, and when the ice melts the aggraded channels appear as long ridges of gravel and See also:sand known as eskers. It has been thought that similar ridges are sometimes formed in valleys cut in the ice from See also:top to bottom, and even that they rise from gravel and sand lodged in super-glacial channels. The latter at least is probably rare, as the See also:surface streams have usually high gradients, See also:swift currents and smooth bottoms, and hence give little opportunity for lodgment. In the See also:case of ice-sheets, too, in which eskers are chiefly See also:developed, there is usually no surface material except at the immediate edge, where the ice is thin and its layers upturned " (T. C. Chamberlin and R. D. See also:Salisbury, See also:Geology, Processes and their Results).

Eskers are to be distinguished from See also:

kames (q.v.).

End of Article: ESKER (O. Irish eiscir)

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