Chattermarked garnets in Pleistocene glacial sediments

An examination of the surface textures on detrital garnets shows that conchoidal fractures, V-shaped etch pits, and other marks of unknown origin can be modified by chemical etching to produce features which resemble chattermark trails produced by slip-stick motion. In order to differentiate false trails from those produced by glacial grinding, it is recommended that the altered surfaces of garnets be examined under a scanning electron microscope. An analysis of chattermark trails on garnets from glaciogenic deposits from Nova Scotia, Denmark, and south-central Ontario shows that there is a wide variation in the percentage of garnets with chattermark trails in different glacial environments. However, after local anomalies in the percentage of Chattermarked garnets are averaged out by recycling and dispersion, there is evident a crude correlation between the type of glaciation and the average percentage of Chattermarked garnets in glacial deposits.