PROGLACIAL LACUSTRINE ENVIRONMENT

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Abstract
At the present day, there exist more lakes formed as a result of glaciation than all other lakes combined. Such lakes rry originate in a number of ways: by ice erosion of bedrock, by drainage barriers composed of moraine or outwash dams, by depressions formed in glacial deposits, by valley glaciation which forrrcd long and narrow basins, and by ice dams. The term “glacial lake” is used by many authors (e.g., Hutchinson 1957) to refer to any lake whose origin is due to past or present glacial action. Most of such present-day glacial lakes, however, are results of Pleistocene glacial activities and are now under no direct influence of glaciers. To focus this chapter, therefore, it will be useful to distinguish such glacial lakes from “glacier-fed lakes” which refer only to those that receive glacial irltwater. Many lakes in active proglacial areas, for example the broad sandur plains of Iceland, receive meltwater only rarely and are fed rrinly by groundwater (Churski 1973). “Glacial lakes” thus include “glacier-fed lakes”, but only the latter will be discussed here because these are where typical glaciolacustrine deposits are found. It should be understood, however, that irany authors rrake no distinction between the two terms, and several definitions for “glacial lake” appear to be acceptable (e.g. Bates and Jackson 1980). Lake basins are normelly efficient sediment sinks and thus become final resting spots for much glacigenic sediment. Glacier-fed lakes range in size from a few square meters to hundreds of thousands of square kilometers such

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