<P> Till is classified into primary deposits, laid down directly by glaciers, and secondary deposits, reworked by fluvial transport and other processes . </P> <P> Glacial drift is the coarsely graded and extremely heterogeneous sediment of a glacier; till is the part of glacial drift deposited directly by the glacier . Its content may vary from clays to mixtures of clay, sand, gravel, and boulders . This material is mostly derived from the subglacial erosion and entrainment by the moving ice of the glaciers of previously available unconsolidated sediments . Bedrock can also be eroded through the action of glacial plucking and abrasion and the resulting clasts of various sizes will be incorporated to the glacier's bed . </P> <P> Eventually, the sedimentary assemblage forming this bed will be abandoned some distance down - ice from its various sources . This is the process of glacial till deposition . When this deposition occurs at the base of the moving ice of a glacier, the sediment is called lodgement till . Rarely, eroded unconsolidated sediments can be preserved in the till along with their original sedimentary structures . More commonly, these sediments lose their original structure through the mixture processes associated with subglacial transport and they solely contribute to form the more or less uniform matrix of the till . </P> <P> Till is deposited at the terminal moraine, along the lateral and medial moraines and in the ground moraine of a glacier . As a glacier melts, especially a continental glacier, large amounts of till are washed away and deposited as outwash in sandurs by the rivers flowing from the glacier, and as varves (annual layers) in any proglacial lakes which may form . </P>

Material that melts to form the early continents