Glacier Peak Tephra in the North Cascade Range, Washington: Stratigraphy, Distribution, and Relationship to Late-Glacial Events

1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen C. Porter
Keyword(s):  
Far East ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Cascade Range ◽  
Time Layer ◽  
Terminal Moraine ◽  
The North ◽  
Stratigraphic Position ◽  
Cordilleran Ice Sheet ◽  
Glacial Time

Pumiceous tephra, resulting from multiple eruptions of Glacier Peak volcano in late-glacial time, mantles much of the landscape in the eastern North Cascade Range and extends eastward beyond the Columbia River as a thinner discontinuous deposit. Within about 25 km of the source, the tephra is divisible into as many as nine layers, distinguishable in the field on the basis of color, grain size, thickness, and stratigraphic position. Three principal layers, designated G (oldest), M, and B, are separated from one another by thinner, finer layers. Layer G has been found as far east as Montana and southern Alberta, whereas layer B has been identified as far as western Wyoming. By contrast, layer M trends nearly south, paralleling the crest of the Cascade Range. Available 14C dates indicate that the tephra complex was probably deposited between about 12,750 and 11,250 years ago. Glacier Peak tephra overlies moraines and associated outwash east of the Cascade Crest that were deposited about 14,000 years ago. Unreworked tephra occurs within several kilometers of many valley heads implying that major valley glaciers had nearly disappeared by the time of the initial tephra fall. Distribution of tephra indicates that the southern margin of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet had retreated at least 80 km north of its terminal moraine on the Waterville Plateau by the time layer G was deposited. Late-glacial moraines of the Rat Creek advance lie within the fallout area of layer M but lack the tephra on their surface implying that they were built subsequent to the eruption of this unit. Moraines of the Hyak advance at Snoqualmie Pass, which are correlated with the Rat Creek moraines farther north, were constructed prior to 11,000 14C years ago. The late-glacial advance along the Cascade Crest, therefore, apparently culminated between about 12,000 and 11,000 14C years ago and was broadly in phase with the Sumas readvance of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet in the Fraser Lowland which occurred between about 11,800 and 11,400 14C years ago.

A Glacier Peak and Mount Saint Helens J volcanic ash couplet and the timing of deglaciation in the Colville Valley area, Washington

1992 ◽  
Vol 29 (11) ◽  
pp. 2397-2405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul E. Carrara ◽  
Deborah A. Trimble
Keyword(s):  
Volcanic Ash ◽  
White Layer ◽  
Far East ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Fine Sand ◽  
Terminal Moraine ◽  
Mountain Glaciers ◽  
Ash Layer ◽  
Cordilleran Ice Sheet ◽  
Valley Area

A Late Pleistocene volcanic ash couplet consisting of a Glacier Peak ash layer and an underlying Mount Saint Helens J ash layer has been identified at three sites in the Colville Valley area of northeastern Washington. This ash couplet has been reported as far east as northwestern Montana and therefore appears to have widespread distribution south of the International Boundary. Because areas covered by the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, as well as by local mountain glaciers and icefields, were undergoing extensive deglaciation when these ash layers were deposited, about 11 200 BP, the ash couplet is an important time-stratigraphic marker, and its identification at a site provides information about the extent of deglaciation at that time.The ash couplet is easily recognized in the study area. Distinguishing characteristics include (i) the medium-sand-size (0.2–0.4 mm) rounded glass fragments and abundant mafic crystals in the fine-sand fraction of the Glacier Peak ash, a white layer 5–10 mm thick; (ii) the fine sandy silt and mafic-crystal-poor Mount Saint Helens J ash, also a white layer 5–10 mm thick, below the Glacier Peak ash; and (iii) the stratigraphic position of the couplet beneath the much younger Mazama ash.The presence of the Glacier Peak and Mount Saint Helens J ash couplet in the Colville Valley, about 50 km north (upglacier) from the Late Wisconsin terminal moraine near the town of Springdale, indicates that the active margin of the Colville sublobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet had retreated at least that distance by 11 200 BP.

Late-glacial flow patterns, deglaciation, and postglacial emergence of south-central Baffin Island and the north-central coast of Hudson Strait, eastern Canadian Arctic

1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (11) ◽  
pp. 1499-1510 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. Manley
Keyword(s):  
High Tide ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Flow Patterns ◽  
Sediment Provenance ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Ice Cap ◽  
The North ◽  
South Central ◽  
Ice Stream

New georaorphic, sedimentologic, and chronologic data are used to reconstruct late Quaternary ice-sheet flow patterns, deglaciation, and isostatic uplift along the largest marine trough connecting the Laurentide Ice Sheet with the North Atlantic Ocean. The Lake Harbour region was targeted for study given its potential to record flow from several ice-dispersal centers. Striations and sediment provenance indicators define flow patterns. Thirty-four radiocarbon dates constrain a chronology of events. Centuries or millennia(?) before deglaciation, a southeast-flowing ice stream impinged on southernmost Big Island, as recorded by a single striation site and delimited in extent by geomorphic evidence of cold-based ice. During the Cockburn Substagc (9000–8000 BP), the region was scoured by southward to southwestward flow from an ice cap on Meta Incognita Peninsula, as recorded by 60 striation sites along 200 km of coastline. Carbonate erratics are uncommon in till above the marine limit. Where present, they suggest that southward flow reworked older drift. At about 8200 BP, the area was dcglaciated, and the marine limit was established at elevations of 67–141 m above high tide. Iceberg calving and sediment discharge from an ice margin in Ungava Bay, Hudson Bay, or Foxe Basin then blanketed the area with limestone-rich glaciomarinc sediment. Afterward, the region experienced slow but sustained emergence. The data revise the maximum lateral extent of a Late Wisconsinan ice stream in Hudson Strait and emphasize the extent of a late-glacial ice cap on western Meta Incognita Peninsula.

Evidence of meltwater pulses into the North Pacific over the last 20 ka due to the decay of Kamchatka Glaciers and Cordilleran Ice Sheet

2019 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 33-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergey Gorbarenko ◽  
Xuefa Shi ◽  
Jianjun Zou ◽  
Tatyana Velivetskaya ◽  
Antonina Artemova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North Pacific ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
The North ◽  
Cordilleran Ice Sheet ◽  
The North Pacific

Time of Maximum Late Wisconsin Glaciation, West Coast of Canada

1990 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertrand Blaise ◽  
John J. Clague ◽  
Rolf W. Mathewes
Keyword(s):  
West Coast ◽  
North Pacific ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
North Pacific Ocean ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Western Margin ◽  
The Core ◽  
Queen Charlotte Islands ◽  
Cordilleran Ice Sheet

AbstractNew data from a deep-sea core in the eastern North Pacific Ocean indicate that the western margin of the Late Wisconsin Cordilleran Ice Sheet began to retreat from its maximum position after 15,600 yr B.P. Ice-rafted detritus is present in the core below the 15,600 yr B.P. level and was deposited while lobes of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet advanced across the continental shelf in Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait, and Dixon Entrance. The core data are complemented by stratigraphic evidence and radiocarbon ages from Quaternary exposures bordering Hecate Strait and Dixon Entrance. These indicate that piedmont lobes reached the east and north shores of Graham Island (part of the Queen Charlotte Islands) between about 23,000 and 21,000 yr B.P. Sometime thereafter, but before 15,000–16,000 yr B.P., these glaciers achieved their greatest Late Wisconsin extent. Radiocarbon ages of late-glacial and postglacial sediments from Queen Charlotte Sound, Hecate Strait, and adjacent land areas show that deglaciation began in these areas before 15,000 yr B.P. and that the shelf was completely free of ice by 13,000 yr B.P.

Late Pleistocene and early Holocene environmental history of southwestern Washington State, U.S.A.

1984 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 619-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathy W. Barnosky
Keyword(s):  
Environmental History ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Cascade Range ◽  
Early Holocene ◽  
Olympic Mountains ◽  
Tundra Vegetation ◽  
Plant Remains ◽  
History Of ◽  
Glacial Time

A comparison of pollen records and associated plant remains from sites along a major precipitation gradient in southwestern Washington enables reconstruction of the late Quaternary environment during glacial and early Holocene time. During the Evans Creek Stade (25 000 – 17 000 years BP) little moisture reached lowlands east of the Olympic Mountains and as a result both the Puget Trough and the Columbia Basin featured a cold dry climate and parkland–tundra vegetation In glacial time, greatest aridity seems to have occurred between 19 000 and 17 000 years BP. After 17 000 years BP the development of mesophytic subalpine parkland suggests that maritime conditions extended farther east into the Puget Trough, and the Cascade Range became an important precipitation divide. Conditions warmer and (or) drier than today developed throughout western Washington between 10 000 and 8000–6000 years BP. Vegetation on opposite sides of the Cascade Range became dissimilar as early as 17 000 years BP, but this trend was accentuated in late glacial and early Holocene time.

scholarly journals Deglaciation of the North Cascade Range, Washington and British Columbia, from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 467 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.L. Riedel
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Cascade Range ◽  
North Cascades ◽  
Alpine Glacier ◽  
The North ◽  
Alpine Glaciers ◽  
The Last Glacial Maximum ◽  
The Last Glacial

Glacial retreat from the North Cascade Range after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) at approximately 21 ka until the end of the Pleistocene at 11.6 ka was complex and included both continental and alpine glaciers. Alpine valley glaciers reached their maximum extent before 21.4 ka, then underwent a punctuated retreat to valley heads. In the south, beyond the reach of ice sheet glaciation, several end moraines were deposited after the LGM. Moraines marking a re-advance of alpine glaciers to <5 km below modern glaciers were deposited from 13.7 to 11.6 ka.The Cordilleran Ice Sheet flowed south from near 52° north latitude in British Columbia into the North Cascades. At its maximum size the ice sheet covered more than 500 km2 and had a surface elevation of 2200 m in upper Skagit valley. Deglaciation commenced about 16 ka by frontal retreat of ice flanking the mountains. Surface lowering eventually exposed regional hydrologic divides and stranded ice masses more than 1000 m thick in valleys. Isolated fragments of the ice sheet disintegrated rapidly from 14.5 to 13.5 ka, with the pattern of deglaciation in each valley controlled by valley orientation, topography, and climate. Like alpine glaciers to the south, retreat of the ice sheet remnants was slowed by millennial scale climate fluctuations that produced at least one large recessional moraine, and multiple lateral moraines and kame terraces from elevations of 200-1400 m in most valleys. Large volumes of glacial meltwater flowed through the North Cascades and was concentrated in the Skagit and Methow rivers. Outburst floods from deep proglacial lakes spilled across divides and down steep canyons, depositing coarse gravel terraces and alluvial fans at valley junctions.Climate at the LGM was characterized by a mean summer temperature 6 to 7 ºC cooler than today, and 40% lower mean annual precipitation. Persistence of this climate for thousands of years before the LGM caused a 750-1000 m decrease in alpine glacier equilibrium line altitudes (ELA). In the southern North Cascades at 16 ka, glacial ELAs were 500-700 m lower than today, and during advances from 13.7 to 11.6 ka alpine glacier ELAs were 200-400 m lower.

scholarly journals The Last Cordilleran Ice Sheet in Southern Yukon Territory

2007 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lionel E. Jackson ◽  
Brent Ward ◽  
Alejandra Duk-Rodkin ◽  
Owen L. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Yukon Territory ◽  
Eastern Coast ◽  
Small Magnitude ◽  
Ice Flow ◽  
Coast Mountains ◽  
Terminal Moraine ◽  
Ice Surface ◽  
Flow Surface ◽  
Cordilleran Ice Sheet

ABSTRACT The Cordilleran Ice Sheet in Yukon radiated from ice-divides in the Selwyn, PeIIy1 Cassiar, and eastern Coast Mountains and was contiguous with a piedmond glacier complex from the St. Elias Mountains. Expansion of glaciers in divide areas could have been underway by 29 ka BP but these did not merge to form the ice sheet until after 24 ka BP. The firn line fell to approximately 1500 m at the climax of McConnell Glaciation. Flow within the ice sheet was more analogous to a complex of merged valley glaciers than to that of extant ice sheets: topographic relief was typically equal to or exceeded ice thickness, and strongly influenced ice flow. Surface gradients on the ice sheet were fractions of a degree. Steeper ice-surface gradients occurred locally along the digitate ice margin. Retreat from the terminal moraine was initially gradual as indicated by recessional moraines within a few tens of kilometres of the terminal moraine. Small magnitude readvances occurred locally. The ice sheet eventually disappeared through regional stagnation and downwasting in response to a rise in the firn line to above the surface of the ice sheet. Regional déglaciation was complete prior to approximately 10 ka BP.

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