Drumlins Reveal Catastrophic Subglacial Floods Across North America. Drumlins are streamlined hills formed by subglacial pressurized floods beneath ice sheets thousands of feet thick Their shape serves as a paleocurrent indicator: blunt end faces upstream, tapered end faces downstream Thousands of drumlins covering thousands of square miles provide simultaneous data points recording flow direction

Those elongated hills called drumlins scattered across North America are frozen records of catastrophic floods that roared beneath ice sheets! Dr. John Shaw proposed they formed from subglacial pressurized floods, with researcher Jerome Lessemann documenting drumlin swarms in British Columbia. The drumlin's shape itself records ancient water flow — blunt end faces upstream, tapered end faces downstream. One flood event, the Livingston Lake, released roughly 84,000 cubic kilometers of water, with some flow coming from the north, not just glacial Lake Missoula to the east! 🏔️💧

Key Facts

  • Drumlins are streamlined hills formed by subglacial pressurized floods beneath ice sheets thousands of feet thick
  • Their shape serves as a paleocurrent indicator: blunt end faces upstream, tapered end faces downstream
  • Thousands of drumlins covering thousands of square miles provide simultaneous data points recording flow direction
  • John Shaw was the researcher who first proposed that drumlins formed from subglacial pressurized floods
  • Jerome Lessemann was Shaw's graduate student who documented drumlin swarms in British Columbia
  • The Livingston Lake event showed a total discharge of approximately 84,000 cubic kilometers of water
  • Research indicates some flood water originated from the north in British Columbia, not from glacial Lake Missoula to the east