The Komie Creek map area was fully glaciated by the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) during
the Late Wisconsinan Fraser Glaciation. Ice flow during the glacial maximum was
towards the southwest, as indicated by the orientation of streamlined landforms on the
Etsho Plateau. At some time after the Fraser Glaciation maximum, the LIS divided into
two lobes (upland and lowland). The subsequent landform assemblages, highlighted
well in LiDAR imagery, provide evidence that the upland lobe retreated to the northeast
and the lateral margin of the lowland lobe dropped to the southwest.
Organic deposits are the dominant surficial material type in the Komie Creek map area.
They have accumulated and been deposited on poorly drained clay and silt-rich morainal
and glacio-lacustrine deposits. Morainal deposits are the next most common surficial
material type in the area and dominate along the top of the Etsho Escarpment and in the
northeast corner of the study area. Glaciofluvial deposits are rare.
During ice retreat, an ice-marginal lake formed in the south-central part of the study area
where the lowland lobe prevented drainage of meltwater out of the area. An aerially
extensive landform, interpreted as an ice-contact glaciofluvial delta complex, was
deposited into this dynamic glacial lake. The lake levels rose abruptly several times
during delta deposition as a result of large west-flowing outburst floods in the Cabin
Creek melt water channel, generated when a glacial lake breached its margins on or under
the upland lobe. The delta is composed of several lobate landforms that
sedimentologically are highly variable.
This thesis presents a new, detailed 1:50,000-scale surficial geology map for the Komie
Creek map area. This map was generated using aerial photographs, LiDAR DEMs,
ground-based geophysics and field observations. This research also contributes to an
increased understanding of the sedimentology and internal structure of ice-contact
glaciofluvial deltas. / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/3340 |
| Date | 02 June 2011 |
| Creators | Demchuk, Tania Ellen |
| Contributors | Levson, Victor M., Van der Flier-Keller, Eileen |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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