Geomorphological Investigations in West-Central Baffin Island, N.W.T., Canada

Abstract

The paper discusses a variety of glacial, glaciofluvial, and periglacial forms in western Baffin Island. Glacial forms, especially striations and crag-and-tail, reveal the effects of erosion by ice from the proto-Barnes Ice Cap, which reached the coast about 7,000 years ago. Moraine stones near its margin show a preferred orientation perpendicular to the moraine crests. Glaciofluvial forms include deltas, eskers, and kames, the latter occurring mainly in dead-ice areas. A relationship between delta slope and stone size is established. Esker-like ridges in the dead-ice areas are of two types; some are true eskers, showing evidence of flow, and others represent material collected in elongated hollows within the dead-ice areas. Kames and kame terraces are also described; the slope of the latter is found to indicate the ice-margin gradient. The effects of material size and shape on the nature of periglacial forms, including ice-wedge polygons, sorted features, and solifluction lobes, are considered. Ice-wedge...