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Glacial Groove

Glacial grooves or glacial striations are scratches or gouges cut into bedrock by process of glacial abrasion. Glacial striations usually occur as multiple straight, parallel grooves representing the movement of the sediment-loaded base of the glacier. Large amounts of coarse gravel and boulders carried along underneath the glacier provide the abrasive power to cut the grooves, and finer sediments also in the base of the moving glacier further scour and polish the bedrock. Most glacial striations were exposed by the retreat of glaciers since the Last Glacial Maximum or the more recent Little Ice Age. As well as indicating the direction of flow of the glacial ice, the depth and extent of weathering of the gouges may be used to estimate the duration of post-glacier exposure of the rock.

See also

Fluting
Giant glacial grooves

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