An erosional origin for drumlins of NW Poland

Drumlins are landforms essential to understanding of ice sheet movement over soft beds, sediment transport along the ice/bed interface, and the formation of a wide range of glacial deposits. Although investigated more than any other glacial landform, the origin of drumlins remains contentious. Using high-resolution LiDAR imagery and field data, we investigate the geomorphology and internal composition of one of the biggest drumlin fields in the North European Lowland. The Stargard drumlin field consists of over 1300 drumlins and related streamlined subglacial bedforms in a terminal part of a major Weichselian palaeo-ice stream of the southern Scandinavian Ice Sheet. The drumlins are typically 600-800 m long, 200-250 m wide, 3-6 m high and have axial elongation ratios ~2 but in some cases exceeding 15. Several subzones inferred from drumlin morphometry exist reflecting different ice flow dynamics. The most elongated drumlins occur in areas where ice moved down-slope and where thick fine-grained deposits of low hydraulic conductivity occur in the substratum. The largest portion of land occupied by drumlins and the greatest frequency density of drumlins occur where the ice moved up-slope. Stargard drumlins are composed of a wide variety of glacial deposits including various types of tills and meltwater sediments, which range from undisturbed to heavily deformed. There is no correlation between the deposits in the drumlins and the drumlin forms indicating that the deposits pre-date the drumlinizing process. It is suggested that the drumlin field was generated by a combination of direct glacial erosion and subglacial meltwater erosion by removing antecedent material from the inter-drumlin areas and streamlining the resultant bumps. Our data support the search for a unifying theory of drumlin formation and suggest erosion as the most plausible single mechanism generating drumlin landscapes. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.