Untangling the Quaternary Period—A Legacy of Stephen C. Porter

Stephen C. Porter was an international leader in Quaternary science for several decades, having worked on most of the world’s continents and having led international organizations and a prominent interdisciplinary journal. His work influenced many individuals, and he played an essential role in linking Chinese Quaternary science with the broader international scientific community. This volume brings together nineteen papers of interdisciplinary Quaternary science honoring Porter. Special Paper 548 features papers from six continents, on wide-ranging topics including glaciation, paleoecology, landscape evolution, megafloods, and loess. The topical and geographical range of the papers, as well as their interdisciplinary nature, honor Porter’s distinct approach to Quaternary science and leadership that influences the field to this day.
Multiple mechanisms of minor moraine formation in the Schwarzensteinkees foreland, Austria
*Corresponding author, current address: U.S. Department of Agriculture–Natural Resources Conservation Service, 125 South State Street, Room 4010, Salt Lake City, Utah 84138-1100, USA; e-mail: [email protected].
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Published:April 07, 2021
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CiteCitation
Cianna E. Wyshnytzky*, Sven Lukas, John W.E. Groves, 2021. "Multiple mechanisms of minor moraine formation in the Schwarzensteinkees foreland, Austria", Untangling the Quaternary Period—A Legacy of Stephen C. Porter, Richard B. Waitt, Glenn D. Thackray, Alan R. Gillespie
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ABSTRACT
This paper presents a detailed sedimentologic data set of minor moraines (heights ≤2.0 m, widths ≤14 m, lengths ≤108 m) that formed beginning near the end of the Little Ice Age by Schwarzensteinkees, a valley glacier in Austria. Sorted sediment and stratified diamict dominate five exposures, and compact massive diamict exists in one exposure. This sediment is interpreted as proglacial outwash and subglacial till. Most moraine sediment shows deformation structures (e.g., smaller and larger folds), and some units contain evidence of water escape. Other units maintain their original subhorizontality. All moraines contain unequivocal evidence of having formed through deformation by pushing during ice-margin fluctuations. Minor moraines formed more specifically by three identified processes: (1) pushing of outwash sediment; (2) stacking and pushing of outwash sediment; and (3) pushing of outwash sediment and freezing-on of subglacial till. Our data suggest that the sedimentologic composition of the valley fill influences the style of push-moraine formation. In this case, the friable nature of outwash sediments can increase the efficiency of the pushing ice front and the likelihood of sediment collapse down the proximal ice-contact slope after ice retreat. This study contributes to our understanding of sediment transport and deposition in high-mountain environments.
- alpine environment
- Alps
- Austria
- Cenozoic
- Central Europe
- clastic sediments
- deformation
- depositional environment
- diamicton
- Eastern Alps
- erosion features
- Europe
- glacial extent
- glacial transport
- glaciers
- granulometry
- Holocene
- Little Ice Age
- moraines
- Neoglacial
- outwash
- Quaternary
- sediment transport
- sediments
- subalpine environment
- talus slopes
- terrestrial environment
- till
- transport
- upper Holocene
- Zillertal Alps
- Schwarzensteinkees