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Discriminating Texturally Similar Tills in Central Minnesota by Graphical and Multivariate Techniques1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Howard D. Mooers
Howard D. Mooers*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, 108 Pillsbury Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 USA Limnological Research Center, 220 Pillsbury Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 USA
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Abstract

The sequence of glaciation in the midwestern United States has been defined mainly by till stratigraphy. Correlation of tills over long distances, however, is complicated by spatial variation of sediment characteristics. In east-central Minnesota three till units were previously defined. Two were considered to be lithologically identical and were correlated with the late Wisconsin advance of the Rainy lobe, whereas a third till was assigned to the contemporaneous advance of the Superior lobe. This interpretation was inconsistent with subsequent glaciological reconstructions of the Rainy and Superior lobes. In an effort to define the parent lobe of the deposits in central Minnesota, the tills were sampled, analyzed, and compared by graphical and multivariate techniques. Graphical comparisons of sedimentological parameters were inadequate to distinguish important differences among the groups. However, principal component analysis of the analytical data indicates that the original interpretation is untenable and that one of the tills formerly assigned to the Rainlylobe should now be attributed to the Superior lobe. Problems encountered with correlation of tills exposed at the surface illustrate the complexity and problems associated with subsurface stratigraphic correlation.

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , September 1990 , pp. 133 - 147
Copyright
University of Washington

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Footnotes

1

Publication No. 1130 of the Newton Horace Winchell School of Earth Sciences, Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455.

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