Formation of Cave Cod ty Pleistocene Ice Sheets 
cre Deposits 
More than a century 2z0, Hitchcock (3) described the abundance 
of scattered erratic boulders strewn over Cape Cod and adjacert is- 
lards, and attributed them to "the flood" of biblical history, but 
not without some urncertaixcty as to the adequacy of that explanation. 
grized and proved that the Cape consists 
jacial and siacio-fluvial materials,and that its 
es 
ers morasmic “in origine They hee suggested 
re comcimiations of glacial features observed 
eres. ard parts of eastern Massachusetts. 
that these moraines 
a _ Long Isiand, eee 
ed tre question concerning the stage to 
s 
which shese deposits ozrz ty suggesting that "Martha's Vineyard 
ard parts of Cape Cod and the mainlard of Massachusetts were free of 
Ce ea. Ghe date Wiscozrsin arc perhaps even through the whole of Wis- 
consin time." Moreover, » Sayles (5), working principally on the 
more easterly portion of tne Cave, observed phenomena indicative of 
ial was disturbed by frost heaving 
ot | 
an even greater comolexity or zlacial’and associated deposits tha 
had been inferred \. Seg 
From intensive 2 areas mapped during the summer of 
1939 and from. rec ps over the rest of the Cape, the 
‘authors of this va y convinced that the major features 
of Cape cod geol during the later substages of the 
Wisconsin stage-of acion -cecause: 
1. The till and associaved slacio o-fluvial gravels are, with few 
exceptions, rot as rard and compact as one would expect es to be 
had they been overridcer cy later ice or subjected for a long time to 
cementation by ground water and es ney are not as stained and rotted 
as the } ai 
2. Ty 
3 
y should te if exposed to a long interval of weatheringe 
ch e 
= 
z ion oF piartv roots and the zone of weathered soil 
at tre top of the deposits are relatively thin, averaging tozether 
less thar 3 feet. Such thin zones could not represent a long inter- 
val of disturbance ard exposure to weathering. 
3 Slopes producec ty rzelting of buried ice blocks have teen 
modified very little by siumpize ard rainwash, and the bottoms of 
kettles are almost free of surface fill which would have accumulated 
in them to considerable thicimesses had they stood open for more than 
a few ters of thousazds of yearse 
4, Surface drainaze has made very little headway in gullying 
and modifying the coztours of the moraines and outwash plainse We 
would expect m =) i 1 loose materials in so long a 
time as that fron consin to the presente 
Deposits %} early Wisconsin or earlier 
Pleistocere stages = parts of southeastern Massa- 
chusetts, especially east and rorth of the areas included in this 
reporte These may ce seen in the lower parts of the cliffs on the 
north shore tetyveen Hllisville and Plymouth, north of Tennis, and 
from Chatrem to Truro. Details corcerning them must te deferred to 
