Traungletscher

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The Traungletscher was a glacier that covered a large part of the Upper Austrian Salzkammergut during the four known ice ages and formed today's valleys and lakes.

The glacier flowed from the nutrient area  on the Dachstein massif north to the edge of the Alps and beyond, following the current course of the Traun  to the northeast, over today's Ischltal and Wolfgangsee to the northwest, and over the valley of the Schwarzensee towards the Attersee . The tongues  were in the basins of the Traun , Atter and Irrsees as well as at Oberwang .

Remains of the terminal moraine from the Günz glacial period can be found near Berg to the west of Vorchdorf . In the Mindel glacial period , the Traungletscher in the northwest reached the southern foothills of the Kobernaußerwald and left closed terminal moraine in the area of Straßwalchen , Eisengattern and Frankenmarkt . In the northeast there is a terminal moraine near Steyrermühl . Closed terminal moraine lines of the Riss glaciation  can be found near Gschwandt and Ohlsdorf north of the Traunsee. Moraines of the Würm glacial period have been preserved around the Traunsee from Gmunden to Altmünster .

The glacier flow transformed the basins and valleys, depending on the respective geological subsoil, into broad valley landscapes covered with ground moraine like the Ischl valley or steep-walled trough valleys like around the Traunsee. In many places there was deep erosion due to the erosion of the ice and the water flowing at the glacier base, especially in the tongue area . This created tubs in the pre-Quaternary rock bed of the valleys, so-called “over-deepened basins”, which reach up to a few 100 meters below the current river level. They were only partially filled with sediment and are now filled with numerous lakes.

literature

  • Dirk van Husen: When our lakes were glaciers - The ice age development in the Salzkammergut. In: JT Weidinger, H. Lobitzer, I. Spitzbart (Ed.): Contributions to the geology of the Salzkammergut, Gmundner Geo-Studien 2, 2003, pp. 215–222. ( PDF; 557 kB )
  • Hermann Kohl: The Ice Age in Upper Austria. In: ÖKO · L 23/3, 2001, pp. 18–28. ( PDF; 567 kB )