Harmonized landform regions in the glaciated Central Lowlands, USA

Many distinct glacial episodes in the past similar to 1 million years in the Central Lowlands of North America left behind a patchwork of glaciated landscapes of different ages and formed through different glacial, paraglacial, and proglacial processes. Herein, we synthesize and reconcile diverse data sources across nine states in the Central Lowlands to create a generalized landform regions map, incorporating information from surficial geology, age-constrained glacial boundaries, soil properties and parent material, and topography. The resulting map presents regions of till plains, moraines, outwash plains, and glacial lakes with ages ranging from 10.2 cal ka BP to greater than 500 cal ka BP. This new map improves on regional perspectives of the glaciated Central Lowlands by modifying and reconciling boundaries to agree with a variety of spatial data sources with finer detail. This refined map enables a more accurate spatial analysis of the landform regions by reducing noise from imprecise boundaries.