Onshore–offshore correlation of central Lake Erie glacial deposits

Abstract

Dive observations, echogram transects, core sampling, and a seismic profile revealed that the lake bed of north-central Lake Erie is an extensive terrace cut by storm waves and currents. The terrace is an erosional unconformity on which Late Wisconsinan (Port Bruce and Mackinaw) glacial units crop out. Beds of massive diamictons, and glaciolacustrine sediments containing parallel reflections, crop out alternately from west to east, resulting from an oscillatory ice retreat. These beds correlate with the Port Stanley Drift (Port Bruce phase) and Wentworth Drift (Mackinaw phase) exposed in nearby shore bluffs and onshore moraines. The Port Bruce glacier and earlier readvances formed ice tongues and ice shelves in the central basin. Diamicton layers, some with debris flows, constitute the Port Stanley Till (offshore units M and O). A glaciolacustrine unit N was deposited during Port Bruce glacier recessions. Glaciolacustrine unit P lies between Port Bruce unit O and the Mackinaw Wentworth Till, unit Q. A subsequent glaciolacustrine unit R overlaps unit Q. The onshore Galt and Moffat moraines, composed of Wentworth Till, correlate with ridges of the Norfolk moraine unit Q which extend across Lake Erie between the base of Long Point, Ontario, and Erie, Pennsylvania. The onshore Paris moraine appears to have been eroded on the wave-cut terrace and is evident offshore only near the south shore of Lake Erie. Laminated unit S, younger than unit R, occurs in the western part of central Erie basin, and correlates with overflow of Lake Algonquin from the Huron basin.