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MORAINE

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 815 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MORAINE , a See also:

term adopted from the See also:French for the rocky material carried downwards on the outside of a See also:glacier, and deposited at its sides and See also:foot. The position of the moraine with regard to the glacier is indicated by the names applied to it. The lateral moraine is the fringe of See also:rock fragments at the glacier See also:side. The glacier is always slowly moving down the valley. There are always points in the valley where rock falls are more frequent than in other places. The glacier as it moves forward catches this material and carries it onward in a See also:long heaped See also:line distributing it evenly all down the valley sides. When two glacial valleys converge into one valley two. lateral moraines unite at the point of junction and See also:form a median moraine in the resultant broader glacier, which now has two lateral moraines and one median. All this material carried by the glacier is deposited where the glacier ends, and forms the terminal moraine, frequently in the form of a crescentic See also:dam across the valley. This material is carried farther down-wards by stream See also:action and distributed; otherwise the end of all glacier valleys would be blocked with debris against which the See also:ice would be piled to a See also:great height, and the glacier would finally become stationary. The material pushed forward beneath the glacier is sometimes called the ground moraine, the See also:part See also:left beneath the ice the See also:lodge moraine, that carried to the edge and dropped the See also:dump moraine, and that carried forward the push moraine.

End of Article: MORAINE

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MORAN, EDWARD (1829–1901)

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