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Drumlin Spirits Letterbox Hybrid

This cache has been locked, but it is available for viewing.
Hidden : 7/5/2003
Difficulty:
3 out of 5
Terrain:
3 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

NOTE: This is a letterbox-hybrid geocache. Please bring a rubberstamp to mark the logbook,
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Are those drumlins, you ask? Yes! Here are definitions from some reliable geology resources:

"Drumlins are streamlined mounds of till that form at the base of moving glaciers. The long axis of these features is usually parallel with glacier flow, and the steep end faces the direction from which the glacier advanced. The glacier that formed this drumlin moved from right to left. Drumlins may be over 30 meters high, and extend to lengths of 800 meters. The drumlin in this photograph is about 35 meters high, and is at least 250 meters long." - http://nsidc.org/glaciers/glossary/drumlin.html

"A drumlin is a smooth, streamlined hill composed of till. Long axis oriented in direction of ice movement: Blunt nose points upstream, and gentler slope tails off downstream. In height drumlins range from 8 to 60 m, with average somewhat less than 30 m. Most drumlins are between 0.5 and 1 km in length, the length commonly several times width. Diagnostic characteristics are shape and composition of unstratified glacial drift, in contrast to kames, or stratified glacial drift and random shapes." - http://www.webref.org/geology/d/drumlin.htm

"According to the definition given by Bates and Jackson (1980), a drumlin is "(a) A low, smoothly rounded, elongate oval hill, mound, or ridge of compact glacial till or less commonly, other kinds of (glacial) drift (sandy till, varved clay), built under the margin of the ice and shaped by its flow, or carved out of an older moraine by readvancing ice; its longer axis is parallel to the direction of movement of the ice. It usually has a blunt nose pointing in the direction from which the ice approached, and a gentler slope tapering in the other direction (Figure G-19.1). Height is 8-60 m, average 30 m; length is 400-2000 m, average 1500 m." Bates and Jackson (1980) also define drumlinoid as a near-drumlin and drumloid-a less symmetrically formed drumlin (Figure G-19.2); a drumlin field, also known as "basket-of-eggs topography," (Figure G-19.3) is defined as "a landscape characterized by swarms of closely spaced drumlins, distributed more or less en echelon, and commonly separated by small marshy tracts."

"Drumlins are composed mainly of lodgement till and are associated with till (ground moraine). Thornbury (1954) notes that there are four major areas of drumlin fields in North America. Flint (1971) provides an estimate of the number of drumlins in each of these areas: in southern New Hampshire and eastern Massachusetts (3000), in New York and Ontario south and north of Lake Ontario (10 000), in Nova Scotia (2300), and in parts of Wisconsin (5000), Iowa, and Minnesota. Drumlin fields are also widespread in Europe, especially in Ireland (Figure G-19.3), Scotland, and England (Figure G-19.4), Germany, Sweden (Lundquist, 1981), and Finland. According to Sugden and John (1976), drumlins form in the marginal zone of active ice under dynamic conditions of extending flow at the glacier bed. Lundquist´s (1981) work in Sweden and Prest´s work (1968) in the Northwest Territories of Canada have shown that streamlined depositional landforms that form within the zone of active ice can be grouped into subzones. Prest´s (1968) research, as discussed by Sugden and John (1976), determined that in the Northwest Territories a zone of drumlins is succeeded by a zone of elongated drumlinoid forms, then a zone of drumlinized ground moraine, followed by a fluted ground moraine, then a ground moraine zone, and then bedrock, as depositional processes eventually give way to erosional ones."

To learn more about geology, please visit USGS: Geology and Rockhounds with Rocky.

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