Wanderlust World Wanderlust World Massive ice sheets acted like giant sandpaper, carving deep valleys, fjords, cirques, and basins. The Great Lakes, for example, occupy basins gouged out by glacial movement.
When the ice melted, it dropped the rocks and sediment it carried, forming moraines, drumlins, eskers, and outwash plains. The southern edge of the Laurentide Ice Sheet is still visible as a prominent moraine across the Great Plains.
Removal of the ice's weight caused the Earth's crust to rise, creating raised beaches and strandlines. The Hudson Bay Lowlands are a classic example of this post‑glacial uplift.
Advancing glaciers blocked existing river courses, forcing new pathways. The Wisconsin Glacier redirected the Mississippi River, helping create the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River system.
Cold climates around the ice margins produced frost‑action features such as patterned ground, pingos, and solifluction lobes.
Glaciers moved enormous volumes of sand, gravel, and boulders, blanketing large parts of the Midwest with outwash deposits.
Together, these processes left a legacy of landforms that continue to influence North America's ecology, hydrology, and human settlement patterns.