Glacially-streamlined hard and soft beds of the paleo- Ontario ice stream in Southern Ontario and New York state

Abstract

An extensive tract of glacially-streamlined terrain across a large part of Southern Ontario, Canada, is recognized as the footprint of the paleo-Ontario Ice Stream (OIS) within the easternmost Great Lakes sector of the last Laurentide Ice Sheet. The upstream part is a drumlinized and megagrooved ‘hard bed’ underlain by Cambro-Ordovician carbonates and sandstones. Subglacial plucking of jointed limestone on the lateral margins of drumlinized escarpment interfluves and rock drumlins generated a large flux of coarse debris within the ice base, recorded by sporadic spreads of hummocky rubble moraine. Downstream, the hard bed passes underneath a streamlined ‘soft’ bed of till-cored (‘drift’) drumlins and megaridges of the classic Peterborough and New York State drumlin fields. The boundary between the two bed types is a~10km wide ‘mixed bed’ of isolated drift drumlins resting on drumlinized rock suggesting a common erosional origin. Spatial variation in the geomorphology of ~2500 drift drumlins, indicates that megaridges are clones resulting from the erosion and dissection of larger parent drumlins. A large moraine system may mark the final collapse and melt of the ice stream, accompanying abrupt flow switching of its margin.