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What does a pitted outwash plain reveal about buried glacier ice?

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esker: Nunavut — glacial landform Eskers, or narrow ridges of gravel and sand left by a retreating glacier, wind through western Nunavut, Canada, near the Thelon River.

A pitted outwash plain reveals the former presence of stagnant glacier ice that had become detached from an active glacier and subsequently buried by glacial debris.12

These plains are characterized by numerous steep-sided depressions known as kettles, which form when these buried ice blocks eventually melt. As the ice thins and disappears, the overlying sediment—typically outwash or till—collapses into the resulting void, leaving behind a basin. These ice blocks can remain insulated under a mantle of debris for hundreds of years before melting, and when these depressions fill with water, they are referred to as kettle lakes. Consequently, the presence of a pitted outwash plain serves as a geological record of where stagnant ice masses were once stranded and buried within the landscape.12