The basin that held

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

Lake Musselshell is in the lower (north-flowing) reach of the river. It is underlain mostly by highly erodible

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

Colorado shale,

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

group

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

, siltstone and shale, and Hell Creek sandstone and shale. The bedrock is gently folded and affected by local faults and joints. There is a sequence of nine terraces and more than 100 glacial boulders. The terraces are older than the erratics as the erratics rest on the terraces.Extent and Timing of Laurentide Glacial Lake Musselshell, Central Montana; Nicole Kristina Davis; Montana State University; Bozeman, Montana; July 2004

Glacial stages

Advancing out of

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

a lobe of the late Wisconsin

Laurentide Ice Sheet The Laurentide Ice Sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered millions of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the Northern United States, multiple times during the Quaternary glacial epochs, from 2.58 million years a ...

advanced southeastward into east and central

and southwestern

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

, leaving the Cypress Hills and Boundary Plateau unglaciated. As the Laurentide ice crossed the area of the present day Milk River valley in southern Alberta, it was divided into two lobes by the Sweetgrass Hills, which also remained unglaciated. The western lobe, the Shelby lobe, advanced southward to the Missouri River, in the vicinity of Great Falls, Montana. The lobe that extended east of the Sweetgrass Hills, the Havre lobe, moved in two directions. The Lorna sublobe, advanced across the Missouri River to north of the Highwood Mountains. The Malta sublobe expanded southeastward along the present-day Milk River, bounded to the north by the Boundary Plateau and to the south by the Little Rocky Mountains and the region of the Mussellshell River.Geologic Framework and Glaciation of the Central Area, 1-1-2006; Christopher L. Hill; Boise State University, Boise, Idaho; 2006 The Lake Great Falls provides an approximate date and southern boundary for the maximum advance of the glacial lobes into Montana, impounding the Missouri River,

Yellowstone River The Yellowstone River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately long, in the Western United States. Considered the principal tributary of upper Missouri, via its own tributaries it drains an area with headwaters across the mountains an ...

, and Little Missouri River rivers, each valley forming a glacial lake; i.e., Lake Mussellshell, Lake Circle, Lake Jordan, Lake Lambet, Lake Glendive, and Lake Mikkelson.

References

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Bibliography

*Alden, W. C., 1958, Physiography And Glacial Geology Of Eastern Montana And Adjacent Areas, U. S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 174. *Colton, R. B., Lemke, R. W., and Lindvall, R. M., 1961, Glacial map of Montana East of the Rocky Mountains, U. S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Geological Investigations Map I-327. *Howard, A. D., 1958, Drainage Evolution In Northeastern Montana and Northwestern North Dakota, Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, v69, 575-588. *Thornbury, W. D., 1965, Regional Geomorphology Of The United States, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York.

Glacial stages

References

Bibliography

See also