A moraine is described as which?

• A. A Bed of Clay
• B. Stratified, Sorted Sediments
• C. A Pile of Rocks at the Base of a Slope
• D. Unstratified, Often Contains Faceted Cobbles

Answer: (D)

Moraine is a deposit formed by a glacier, consisting of material carried by the ice and left behind as the glacier melts. This debris is typically a mix of many grain sizes—clay to large boulders—packed together without clear layering, because it’s dumped directly from the ice rather than by flowing water. That makes the deposit unstratified and unsorted, and you’ll often find cobbles with sharp, faceted faces from the grinding action of the ice against bedrock and other rocks.

This description best fits glacial till: a chaotic, unlayered pile of varied-sized clasts carried by the glacier. In contrast, a bed of clay would imply fine-grained sediment settled from water, stratified and sorted sediments reflect water-based deposition with organized layers, and a pile at the base of a slope describes talus or scree formed by gravity-driven rockfall, not ice deposition.