Landform Development on Moraines of the Klutlan Glacier, Yukon Territory, Canada

Abstract The landform evolution of the Klutlan moraines is described and explained primarily with respect to processes that cause voids in which debris is deposited. Morainal deposits of different ages provide examples of landforms at different stages of development, so that continuous ideal evolutionary sequences can be inferred. Specific features are classified as those on material of the same depositional age that develop mostly in a vertical direction with numerous topographic reversals, and those cross-cutting materials of different depositional age that develop primarily in a horizontal direction. The evolution of slopes is often terminated by their destruction as the underlying ice melts, but former slopes on morainal debris are traceable to ice-ridge slopes on the original glacier surface. The general process of evolution is one of downwasting by surficial icemelt, in which a grand topographic reversal takes place as the original ice mass with a gently convex surface melts to leave a basin floored by a concave mantle of morainal debris. The primary glacial process of melting differs from the primary karst process of solution, but many minor glacial processes and major glacial forms are similar to minor karst processes and major karst forms.