scholarly journals Radiocarbon Age Constraints on Rates of Advance and Retreat of the Puget Lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet during the Last Glaciation

1998 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 205-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Porter ◽  
Terry W. Swanson

Calibrated radiocarbon dates of organic matter below and above till of the last (Fraser) glaciation provide limiting ages that constrain the chronology and duration of the last advance–retreat cycle of the Puget Lobe in the central and southeastern Puget Lowland. Seven dates for wood near the top of a thick proglacial delta have a weighted mean age of 17,420 ± 90 cal yr B.P., which is the closest limiting age for arrival of the glacier near the latitude of Seattle. A time–distance curve constructed along a flowline extending south from southwestern British Columbia to the central Puget Lowland implies an average glacier advance rate of ca. 135 m/yr. The glacier terminus reached its southernmost limit ca. 16,950 yr ago and likely remained there for ca. 100 yr. In the vicinity of Seattle, where the glacier reached a maximum thickness of 1000 m, ice covered the landscape for ca. 1020 yr. Postglacial dates constraining the timing of ice retreat in the central lowland are as old as 16,420 cal yr B.P. and show that the terminus had retreated to the northern limit of the lowland within three to four centuries after the glacial maximum. The average rate of retreat was about twice the rate of advance and was enhanced by rapid calving recession along flowline sectors where the glacier front crossed deep proglacial lakes.

1971 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 410-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Porter ◽  
Robert J. Carson

Radiocarbon dates of organic matter collected from ablation till or from the base of peat bogs in dead-ice deposits may postdate retreat of an active glacier terminus by hundreds or even thousands of years, and therefore provide only minimum estimates for the time of glacial maximum and the beginning of ice recession. Logs incorporated in Vashon till close to the drift border postdate recession of the Puget Lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet by some 1400 years, and probably were buried when drift-mantled stagnant ice melted away, causing collapse of a superglacial forest.


2002 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dori J. Kovanen ◽  
Don J. Easterbrook

AbstractThe use of shaded digital topographic models to visualizes suites of topographic features, stratigraphy, and field mapping reveals newly recognized multiple moraines associated with oscillations of the remnants of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet in the Fraser Lowland along the western Washington–British Columbia border. Morphologic features show the extent of ice represented by Sumas Drift (ca. 11,600–10,000 14C yr B.P.), following ca. 3000 yr of retreat from the glacial maximum (Fraser Glaciation) positions 80 km south of Seattle and in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The paleogeography of the ice margin and timing of ice retreat during the Sumas Stade is reconstructed and bracketed by 70 radiocarbon dates (24 on marine shells, 46 on wood and peat), which are secured by morphologic and stratigraphic evidence. Four topographically distinct phases of the Sumas deglaciation model are suggested.Phase SI: 11,600–<11,400 14C yr B.P., outermost drift, scattered remnants of ice-contact depositsPhase SII: 11,600–11,400 14C yr B.P., glacier readvance, building prominent moraine followed by glacier retreatPhase SIII: 10,980–10,250 14C yr B.P., glacier readvance building of multiple moraines followed by glacier retreatPhase SIV: >10,250–10,000? 14C yr B.P., glacier readvance, building of inner moraine followed by glacier retreat


1983 ◽  
Vol 29 (103) ◽  
pp. 515-520
Author(s):  
J. N. J. Visser

Abstract The upper part of a Permo-Carboniferous glacial valley fill along the northern margin of the Karoo Basin includes glacio-lacustrine sediments. During the last glacier advance into the lake, a bedded heterogeneous diamictite facies was deposited and, on glacier retreat, a sequence of deformed siltstones with diamictite lenses and sandstone beds, varved shale and rhythmite shale was laid down. Black carbonaceous mud was deposited during the subsequent marine transgression. According to varve counts, the glacier receded from the valley over a period of 500 to 1 000 years and it is concluded that the overall ice-retreat rate during the Permo-Carboniferous deglaciation was relatively high.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascal Bohleber ◽  
Margit Schwikowski ◽  
Martin Stocker-Waldhuber ◽  
Ling Fang ◽  
Andrea Fischer

AbstractDetailed knowledge of Holocene climate and glaciers dynamics is essential for sustainable development in warming mountain regions. Yet information about Holocene glacier coverage in the Alps before the Little Ice Age stems mostly from studying advances of glacier tongues at lower elevations. Here we present a new approach to reconstructing past glacier low stands and ice-free conditions by assessing and dating the oldest ice preserved at high elevations. A previously unexplored ice dome at Weißseespitze summit (3500 m), near where the “Tyrolean Iceman” was found, offers almost ideal conditions for preserving the original ice formed at the site. The glaciological settings and state-of-the-art micro-radiocarbon age constraints indicate that the summit has been glaciated for about 5900 years. In combination with known maximum ages of other high Alpine glaciers, we present evidence for an elevation gradient of neoglaciation onset. It reveals that in the Alps only the highest elevation sites remained ice-covered throughout the Holocene. Just before the life of the Iceman, high Alpine summits were emerging from nearly ice-free conditions, during the start of a Mid-Holocene neoglaciation. We demonstrate that, under specific circumstances, the old ice at the base of high Alpine glaciers is a sensitive archive of glacier change. However, under current melt rates the archive at Weißseespitze and at similar locations will be lost within the next two decades.


1988 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 938-941 ◽  
Author(s):  
John J. Clague ◽  
Ian R. Saunders ◽  
Michael C. Roberts

New radiocarbon dates on wood from two exposures in Chilliwack valley, southwestern British Columbia, indicate that this area was ice free and locally forested 16 000 radiocarbon years ago. This suggests that the Late Wisconsinan Cordilleran Ice Sheet reached its maximum extent in this region after 16 000 years BP. The Chilliwack valley dates are the youngest in British Columbia that bear on the growth of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet.


1952 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-314
Author(s):  
V. C. Stechschulte

Abstract A simple method is outlined for obtaining from a time-distance curve of a deep-focus earthquake a table of travel times within an earth “stripped” to the depth h, the depth of focus. The method depends on the fact that such a curve for a deep-focus earthquake has a point of inflection and therefore has the same slope at two different values of epicentral distance. The Herglotz-Wiechert method may then be applied to these travel times to obtain a velocity-depth distribution.


2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (63) ◽  
pp. 221-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Turrin ◽  
Richard R. Forster ◽  
Chris Larsen ◽  
Jeanne Sauber

AbstractBering Glacier, Alaska, USA, has a ∼20 year surge cycle, with its most recent surge reaching the terminus in 2011. To study this most recent activity a time series of ice velocity maps was produced by applying optical feature-tracking methods to Landsat-7 ETM+ imagery spanning 2001-11. The velocity maps show a yearly increase in ice surface velocity associated with the down-glacier movement of a surge front. In 2008/09 the maximum ice surface velocity was 1.5 ±0.017 km a-1 in the mid-ablation zone, which decreased to 1.2 ±0.015 km a-1 in 2009/10 in the lower ablation zone, and then increased to nearly 4.4 ± 0.03 km a-1 in summer 2011 when the surge front reached the glacier terminus. The surge front propagated down-glacier as a kinematic wave at an average rate of 4.4 ±2.0 km a-1 between September 2002 and April 2009, then accelerated to 13.9 ± 2.0 km a-1 as it entered the piedmont lobe between April 2009 and September 2010. The wave seems to have initiated near the confluence of Bering Glacier and Bagley Ice Valley as early as 2001, and the surge was triggered in 2008 further down-glacier in the mid-ablation zone after the wave passed an ice reservoir area.


2001 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth A. Armitage ◽  
James E. Brady ◽  
Allan Cobb ◽  
John R. Southon ◽  
Marvin W. Rowe

Radiocarbon age determinations are presented on three hieroglyphic texts from Naj Tunich cave in Guatemala containing Maya calendar dates. The ages obtained are on average 110–140 years older than the calendar dates. Several possible reasons are discussed for this discrepancy: one that is applicable to all radiocarbon dates on charcoal, one that applies to rock paintings, and one that is specific for the tropics. Possible problems with the ages ascribed to the Maya calendar dates are also discussed. Even with the potential problems that may exist, these dates still fall within 110–140 years of the ascribed calendar dates. Caution is urged in the interpretation of dates on charcoal pigments from rock paintings; consideration of the “old wood” and “old charcoal” factors is important.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 1527-1537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon L. Pendleton ◽  
Gifford H. Miller ◽  
Robert A. Anderson ◽  
Sarah E. Crump ◽  
Yafang Zhong ◽  
...  

Abstract. Records of Neoglacial glacier activity in the Arctic constructed from moraines are often incomplete due to a preservation bias toward the most extensive advance, often the Little Ice Age. Recent warming in the Arctic has caused extensive retreat of glaciers over the past several decades, exposing preserved landscapes complete with in situ tundra plants previously entombed by ice. The radiocarbon ages of these plants define the timing of snowline depression and glacier advance across the site, in response to local summer cooling. Erosion rapidly removes most dead plants that have been recently exposed by ice retreat, but where erosive processes are unusually weak, dead plants may remain preserved on the landscape for decades. In such settings, a transect of plant radiocarbon ages can be used to construct a near-continuous chronology of past ice margin advance. Here we present radiocarbon dates from the first such transect on Baffin Island, which directly dates the advance of a small ice cap over the past two millennia. The nature of ice expansion between 20 BCE and ∼ 1000 CE is still uncertain, but episodic advances at ∼ 1000 CE, ∼ 1200, and  ∼ 1500 led to the maximum Neoglacial dimensions ~ 1900 CE. We employ a two-dimensional numerical glacier model calibrated using the plant radiocarbon ages ice margin chronology to assess the sensitivity of the ice cap to temperature change. Model experiments show that at least ∼ 0.44 °C of cooling over the past 2 kyr is required for the ice cap to reach its 1900 CE margin, and that the period from ∼ 1000 to 1900 CE must have been at least 0.25° C cooler than the previous millennium, results that agree with regional temperature reconstructions and climate model simulations. However, significant warming since 1900 CE is required to explain retreat to its present position, and, at the same rate of warming, the ice cap will disappear before 2100 CE.


2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-79
Author(s):  
A. K. Mishra ◽  
C. Placzek ◽  
C. Wurster ◽  
P. W. Whitehead

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