An elongated ellipsoidal feature ranging from CL to a deposit containing many large rock fragments clustered near terminal moraines and resulting from the flow of ice around an obstruction and deposition of soil and rock materials on the downstream side of the obstruction is called what?

• A. Esker
• B. Moraine
• C. Drumlin
• D. Kame

Answer: (C)

A drumlin is a streamlined subglacial hill formed beneath a moving glacier as it flows around an obstruction. The glacier reworks and deposits till on the downstream side, creating an elongated, ellipsoidal shape that aligns with the direction of ice flow. The upstream end tends to be blunt, while the downstream end tapers, and drumlins often occur in fields parallel to the ice direction, frequently near former terminal moraines. The material is unsorted till with embedded rock fragments, reflecting deposition beneath the glacier. This distinguishes it from an esker (a sinuous ridge of sorted sands and gravels formed by meltwater), a moraine (an edgeward pile of debris at the glacier margin, not a streamlined hill), or a kame (a small mound formed from sediment in a meltwater feature, not an elongated hill aligned with flow).