Glacial series

The glacial series refers to a particular sequence of landforms in Central Europe that were formed during the Pleistocene glaciation beneath the ice sheets, along their margins and on their forelands during each glacial advance.

The term "glacial series" (German: Glaziale Serie) was used as early as 1882 by Albrecht Penck initially for the northern Alpine Foreland. Later the term was expanded and used to refer to the Scandinavian glaciation region.

The elements of an ideal and complete glacial series are:

The term "glacial series" is restricted to landforms created by glaciers and classified by geomorphological rules, as opposed to the glacial sediments and sedimentary rocks associated with glaciers and classified by their geological features. A complete glacial series is formed when the edge of the ice sheet remains static for a long time and is not destroyed again by a further advance of the ice mass.

The Alpine glaciers, that formed a network of ice streams during the high points of the ice ages, repeatedly flowed beyond the boundary of the Alps and advanced into the Alpine Foreland. There they formed vast foreland glaciers. In this Alpine Foreland glaciation, Penck identified a number of landforms: the ground moraines, the Zungenbecken, the terminal moraines and the gravel plains in front of them.

The bowl-shaped basins, which were formed by the scouring of the ground by the glacier, were called Zungenbecken ("tongue basins"), because the tongue or snout of the glacier was once located here. In these basins, if there was no outlet, glacial lakes (Gletscherrandseen or Zungenbeckenstauseen) were formed during the retreat of the glacier. There is a number of lakes of this type in the Salzkammergut, for example. Typical landforms within the Zungenbecken of the Alpine Foreland are drumlins, but there are rarely any tunnel valleys. Around the Zungenbecken on the edge of the former ice sheet, are ridges of glacial till known as terminal moraines.

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