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Open-File Report 2012–1217

Prepared in cooperation with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology

Quaternary Geologic Map of the Glasgow 1° x 2° Quadrangle, Montana

By David S. Fullerton, Roger B. Colton, and Charles A. Bush

Thumbnail of and link to report PDF (7.06 MB)Abstract

The Glasgow quadrangle encompasses approximately 16,084 km2 (6,210 mi2). The northern boundary is the Montana/Saskatchewan (U.S./Canada) boundary. The quadrangle is in the Northern Plains physiographic province and it includes the Boundary Plateau, Peerless Plateau, and Larb Hills. The primary river is the Milk River.

The map units are surficial deposits and materials, not landforms. Deposits that comprise some constructional landforms (for example, ground-moraine deposits, end-moraine deposits, and stagnation-moraine deposits, all composed of till) are distinguished for purposes of reconstruction of glacial history. Surficial deposits and materials are assigned to 23 map units on the basis of genesis, age, lithology or composition, texture or particle size, and other physical, chemical, and engineering characteristics. It is not a map of soils that are recognized in pedology or agronomy. Rather, it is a generalized map of soils recognized in engineering geology, or of substrata or parent materials in which pedologic or agronomic soils are formed. Glaciotectonic (ice-thrust) structures and deposits are mapped separately, represented by a symbol. The surficial deposits are glacial, ice-contact, glaciofluvial, alluvial, lacustrine, eolian, colluvial, and mass-movement deposits. Residuum, a surficial material, also is mapped.

Till of late Wisconsin age is represented by three map units. Till of Illinoian age is also represented locally but is widespread in the subsurface.

This map was prepared to serve as a database for compilation of a Quaternary geologic map of the United States and Canada (scale 1:1,000,000). Letter symbols for the map units are those used for the same units in the Quaternary Geologic Atlas of the United States map series.

First posted December 17, 2012

For additional information contact:
Director, Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center
U.S. Geological Survey
Box 25046, Mail Stop 980
Denver, CO 80225
http://gec.cr.usgs.gov/

Part or all of this report is presented in Portable Document Format (PDF); the latest version of Adobe Reader or similar software is required to view it. Download the latest version of Adobe Reader, free of charge.


Suggested citation:

Fullerton, D.S., Colton, R.B., and Bush, C.A., 2012, Quaternary geologic map of the Glasgow 1° x 2° quadrangle, Montana: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2012–1217, scale 1:250,000.



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