End moraine in the snout area of Aktineq Glacier (B17)

Location: Bylot Island, Nunavut, Canada

Hummocky topography of the end moraine in the snout area of Aktineq Glacier (B17). Small mounds range up to 10 m high and are covered by diamicton that lies over glacier ice (and insulates it from melting). Note thaw flow scar on large mound in upper right. Ultimately, as debris slides from the mounds into depressions and the glacier ice melts, the topography will reverse, the mounds becoming depressions among low mounds of debris located where depressions are now. This glacier has retreated over 0.5 kilometer from its neoglacial maximum in the 1940s, leaving behind this distinctive stagnation topography.

Updated 03/29/2010 AW