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Wind-Transverse Corrugations in Pleistocene Periglacial Landscapes of Central Pennsylvania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Ben Marsh
Ben Marsh*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, 17837
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Abstract

Periglacial conditions beyond the Wisconsin glacial limit produced wind-transverse corrugations in east-central Pennsylvania. The corrugations are low, linear ridges typically several hundred meters long, 10–30 m wide, and 3–8 m above the local slope. They are composed of matrix-supported diamictons. Depending upon landscape position, the corrugations form welts, step and risers, or ground-ice-scar ramparts. The average direction normal to the corrugations is clustered at 118°/298°, similar to the late Wisconsin or early Holocene wind direction of 284° measured from a nearby fossil dune field. But the corrugations were neither eroded nor deposited by wind. Rather, they record nivation beside snow that accumulated in wind-transverse patterns. Their wide distribution implies that the region was treeless during the late Wisconsin maximum. Present discontinuities in these and other periglacial features suggest wasting of ice-rich fill in upland valleys, with consequent widening of stream channels and fan growth, at the end of periglacial time.

Keywords

periglacialnivationwind-orientedPennsylvania
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 49 , Issue 2 , March 1998 , pp. 149 - 156
Copyright
University of Washington

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