Illinois Glacier
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How did glaciers affect Illinois?
Photo by broken thoughts
WHAT IS A GLACIER?
A glacier is a giant sheet of ice that forms when the winter snow builds up over time.
Photo by Aztlek
The earth gets really cold so in the summer, the snow never melts completely. Eventually this snow builds up and creates glaciers.
Photo by yannboix
When the earth's surface got significantly colder around 2 million years ago during the Cenozoic Era, glaciers formed. The glaciers of the Pleistocene Epoch (Ice Age) slowly made their way southward after forming in Eastern and Central Canada.
Photo by Sergiu Bacioiu
As they moved, glaciers carved and shaped the rock and ground in Illinois. They picked up sediments and deposited them elsewhere. This is a form of till. Till is a type of drift deposited directly by glaciers. Drift is all deposits of earth and rock materials moved by glacial activity.
Photo by BLMOregon
Glaciers also carried ginormous slabs of rock which, when the glaciers melted, piled up and created moraines. Moraines are arc-shaped ridges formed when till piles up along a glacier's edge.
Photo by cletch
Also, when glaciers melted, they created rivers, streams and other bodies of water. These "rivers" carried outwash. Outwash is sorted and stratified sediments deposited by meltwater flowing away from a glacier.
Photo by NOAA Photo Library
Over the Quaternary Period of geological time (past 1.6 million years), many glaciers formed. These were called glacial episodes. There were about 125,000 years in between each episode called "warm" periods or the Yarmouth. The deep weathered zone called the Yarmouth Geasol formed during these "warm" periods.
Glacial episodes ended around 425,000 years ago and the last glacier melted 10,000 years ago.
Photo by Len Radin
However, Till is not the only type of soil we have in Illinois today...
Photo by elvisripley
Thanks to glaciers for forming and creating the beautiful state that we call home...Illinois.
Photo by kendoman26
