Aquifers in melt-water channels along the southwest flank of the Des Moines Lobe, Lyon County, Minnesota

Abstract

During the Gary and Mankato substages of Wisconsin glaciation the Des Moines lobe advanced southeastward through the broad lowland of the Minnesota River valley of southwestern Minnesota, and thence southward to central Iowa. Among the most prominent topographic features in Lyon County, Minn., are five southeastward-trending end moraines, two of which are associated with and parallel to belts of surficial outwash that are approximately half a mile to a mile wide. Test drilling indicated that one of the belts of outwash is underlain by a complex system of buried melt-water channels. The other is the upper part of a series of deposits in an incised channel. The channels are filled with till, glaciolacustrine deposits, and outwash, which includes permeable deposits of water-bearing sand and gravel. Associated with the surficial melt-water channels is a pronounced southeastward-trending linear drainage pattern. By studying the lineation of streams and lakes, analyzing the available water-well data, and drilling test holes, several elongate deposits of buried outwash having little or no topographic expression were located. The long axes of the deposits are generally parallel to the lineation of the drainage and the end moraines. The melt-water channels in Lyon County trend southeastward because the flank of the ice sheet was confined by a landmass that sloped to the northeast. Similar buried channels may be present elsewhere along the southwest flank of the Des Moines lobe. If so, they probably can be located by the methods described. INTRODUCTION This paper describes the origin and general occurrence of aquifers in linear melt-water deposits parallel to end moraines along the southwest flank of the Des Moines glacial lobe. The study was part of an investigation of the ground-water resources of Lyon County in cooperation with the Division of Waters, Minnesota Department of Conservation, and the city of Marshall. Lyon County is about 150 miles southwest of Minneapolis and St. Paul in the drainage basin of the Minnesota Kiver (fig. 1). It is F-l F-2 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HYDROLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES