Horace Bénédict de Saussure introduced the term moraine into the scientific lexicon in 1779 while traversing the high peaks of the Alps. He was a Swiss naturalist and pioneer of alpinism who borrowed the word from the Savoyard Italian dialect. The term originally meant a mound of earth and traced its roots back to the Provençal word for snout.
Lateral moraines form parallel ridges of debris along the sides of a glacier and can rise as high as 100 meters above the valley floor. Medial moraines run down the center of a valley floor and form when two glaciers meet and the debris on the edges of the adjacent valley sides join. The Kaskawulsh Glacier in the Kluane National Park, Yukon, has a medial moraine 1 kilometer wide.
Rogen moraines are named after Lake RogenMöller in Härjedalen, Sweden, where they were first described in detail. They form a series of ribs perpendicular to the ice flow that resemble tiger stripes when viewed from the air. These landforms can be found in other parts of the world where ice sheets once covered the land, including parts of Canada and the Arctic.
An advancing glacier pushes up thick layers of frozen sediments at its front to create an arctic push moraine in permafrost areas. These features form when the glacier encounters resistance from the underlying bedrock and the debris is often frozen in place. They can be found in other parts of the world where ice sheets once covered the land, including parts of Canada and the Alps.
Washboard moraines consist of low-relief ridges that are typically 1 to 2 meters in height and around 10 to 20 meters apart. They accumulate at the base of the ice as lodgment till and resemble a washboard with a series of parallel ridges when viewed from the air. These features are common in areas that were once covered by ice sheets.