ABSTRACT The last-glacial megaflood Kankakee Torrent streamlined hills and the remarkably straight backslope of the Kalamazoo moraine (Lake Michigan lobe of the Laurentide ice sheet) in southwestern Michigan. Flooding ensued as proglacial Lake Dowagiac overflowed across remnants of the Lake Michigan lobe at the position of the inner margin of the Kalamazoo moraine as glacial debris and ablating ice were pinned against Portage Prairie. Proglacial Lake Dowagiac developed in the Dowagiac River valley as the lobe retreated to form the Valparaiso moraine. A minimum age of the Kankakee Torrent (18.7 ± 0.6 k.y. B.P) is indicated by the weighted mean value of six optically stimulated luminescence ages determined from quartz sand in glaciofluvial sediment on the Kalamazoo moraine (Lake Michigan and Saginaw lobes). This value is consistent with tighter age control based on radiocarbon ages of tundra plants within silty sediment forming ice-walled lake plains and in a torrent-scoured lake basin (Oswego channel) in Illinois. Crosscutting relationships of well-dated moraines indicate the Kankakee Torrent occurred sometime between 19.7 and 18.9 calibrated (cal.) k.y. B.P. as it skirted the south margin of the Valparaiso Morainic System.

ABSTRACT In the central United States, the Laurentide ice sheet advanced considerably farther south and west during the Illinois Episode (marine isotope stage [MIS] 6) in Illinois than during the Wisconsin Episode (MIS 2). The Illinois Episode landscape, beyond the last glacial margin, is thus relatively undisturbed from its original form, with only a drape of last glacial loess on uplands, resulting in some of the best preserved geomorphic features of the MIS 6 Laurentide ice sheet. Recent field observations and high-resolution digital elevation maps have led to new ideas about how an ancestral Lake Michigan Lobe reached its southernmost Pleistocene extent (ca. 150–140 ka) and about the region’s deglacial history. Illinois Episode moraines are notably more narrow and discontinuous than last glacial moraines in northeastern Illinois. Subglacial lineations in Illinois, formed during the Illinois Episode, include a continuum from drumlins and megaflutes to megascale lineations. Crag-and-tail forms are most apparent in southeastern Illinois, influenced by buried Paleozoic bedrock obstacles. In north-central Illinois, megaflutes and drumlins occur in an area of thick glacial drift (>20 m). During deglaciation, an MIS 6 Lake Michigan Lobe likely separated into sublobes as the ice sheet thinned and basal ice conditions became warmer and wetter. Ice streaming into the Kaskaskia River Basin, southwestern Illinois, is envisioned during this period. Factors that likely contributed to faster glacial flow in the basin include the regional topography, a relatively soft and fine-grained substrate, and the subglacial hydrology.

ABSTRACT Based on the interpretation of 893 finite radiocarbon ages, we have revised the time-distance diagram for the Lake Michigan Lobe of the Laurentide ice sheet in Illinois. The data set contains 507 reliable ages determined using standard benzene synthesis–liquid scintillation, including “legacy” ages determined in the 1950s and 1960s at the inception of the radiometric radiocarbon dating method. In addition, the data set includes 278 radiocarbon ages determined by accelerator mass spectrometry. We analyzed the data set based on context, precision, and accuracy to vet minimum or maximum age estimates of diachronic phases. The last glaciation in Illinois is marked by a local maximum margin in northeastern Illinois during the Marengo Phase (modal probability 28,000 cal [calibrated] yr B.P.), and subsequent glacial maximum culminating during the Shelby Phase (24,200 cal yr B.P.). From about that point, the Lake Michigan Lobe entered an overall retreat mode, with significant advances at ~22,200 and 21,100 cal yr B.P. (the Marseilles and Minooka Subphases of the Livingston Phase) and at 20,500 cal yr B.P. (Woodstock Phase). The latter age is also the conservative estimate of the onset of the lacustrine Milwaukee Phase, with referent deposits located as far north as Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This phase ended as the Lake Michigan Lobe made its final advance into Illinois during the Crown Point Phase (18,490 to ca. 16,500 cal yr B.P.), interfingering with the proglacial lacustrine Glenwood Phase deposits (16,900–15,000 cal yr B.P.).

ABSTRACT Glaciotectonic deformation of glacigenic deposits in southwestern Michigan is described and analyzed to determine the source of stress of these strained sediments, which manifests as overturned folds and other deformation similar to shallow crustal décollements. The succession is exposed in 11 aggregate mining operations along the Valparaiso Upland, in portions of Berrien, Van Buren, and Allegan Counties in southwest Michigan. Observed deformation includes a complex array of folds, faults, and thrust features as much as 5 m below the surface exposure of the pit face, consistent with horizontal compressional stresses that were generally aligned with ice flow. Fabric measurement of elongated clasts in the surficial till indicates ice flow from northwest to southeast across the area and parallel to drumlins in the area. Stratigraphically, the area is dominated by fine, lacustrine deposits with coarse sand and gravel capped by the Saugatuck Till during the last glaciation. Sediment grain size, pore-water pressure fluctuations, and topographic relief are interpreted to be responsible for the deformation observed as the Lake Michigan Lobe overrode a proglacial lake basin, including fans and deltas, as it advanced eastward to the Kalamazoo moraine. The fine texture and fabric of the lacustrine sediment package restricted the flow of subglacial water and caused abrupt local increases of pore-water pressure and concomitant coupling and decoupling of the bed-substrate interface. Advancing ice deformed sediments in two stages: (1) proglacially along a décollement at the ice margin, and then (2) subglacially as ice overrode the sediments.

ABSTRACT Recent mapping in southwestern Michigan conducted through U.S. Geological Survey STATEMAP, EDMAP, and Great Lakes Geologic Mapping Coalition projects has produced new interpretations of the origin of the landforms and sediments of the Lake Michigan and Saginaw lobes of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and the dynamics of these lobes. The Lake Michigan lobe advanced southeastward into a proglacial lake at least as far east as the Kalamazoo moraine. During its advance, the lobe extensively deformed the lacustrine sediments it overrode. These structures will be discussed in several pits. When ice backed away from the Kalamazoo moraine, it formed a series of proglacial lakes, several of which were described for the first time in the studies upon which this guidebook is based. As the ice retreated, lowland areas between morainal uplands were utilized by meltwater drainage events, some of them probably catastrophic in nature. The Saginaw lobe stagnated over a broad marginal area as it retreated northeastward toward Saginaw Bay. The resulting stagnant marginal zone is coincident with the subcrop of the Marshall Sandstone. Enhanced basal drainage into the underlying sandstone may have played a role in the dynamics of the lobe. High-relief, supraglacial landforms such as hummocky topography and ice-walled lake plains overprint subglacial landforms in this region, which include large tunnel valleys with inset eskers. Better understanding of the glacial geology of this region is critical to economic development, management of water resources, and exploration for aggregates and other resources.

Orogen-scale décollements (detachment surfaces) are an enduring subject of investigation by geoscientists. Uncertainties remain as to how crustal convergence processes maintain the stresses necessary for development of low-angle fault surfaces above which huge slabs of rock are transported horizontally for tens to hundreds of kilometers. Seismic reflection profiles from the southern Appalachian crystalline core and several foreland fold-and-thrust belts provide useful comparisons with high-resolution shallow-penetration seismic reflection profiles acquired over the frontal zone of the Michigan lobe of the Wisconsinan ice sheet northwest of Chicago, Illinois. These profiles provide images of subhorizontal and overlapping dipping reflections that reveal a ramp-and-flat thrust system developed in poorly consolidated glacial till. The system is rooted in a master décollement at the top of bedrock. These 2–3 km long images contain analogs of images observed in seismic reflection profiles from orogenic belts, except that the scale of observation in the profiles in glacial materials is two orders of magnitude less. Whereas the décollement beneath the ice lobe thrust belt lies ∼70 m below thrusted anticlines having wavelengths of tens of meters driven by an advancing ice sheet, seismic images from overthrust terranes are related to lithospheric convergence that produces décollements traceable for thousands of kilometers at depths ranging from a few to over 10 km. Dual vergence or reversals in vergence (retrocharriage) that developed over abrupt changes in depth to the décollement can be observed at all scales. The strikingly similar images, despite the contrast in scale and driving mechanism, suggest a scale- and driving mechanism–independent behavior for décollement thrust systems. All these systems initially had the mechanical properties needed to produce very similar geometries with a compressional driving mechanism directed subparallel to Earth's surface. Subduction-related accretionary complexes also produce thrust systems with similar geometries in semi- to unconsolidated materials.