Age of the Berlin moraine complex, New Hampshire, USA, and implications for ice sheet dynamics and climate during Termination 1

2019 ◽  
Vol 94 ◽  
pp. 80-93
Author(s):  
Gordon R.M. Bromley ◽  
Brenda L. Hall ◽  
Woodrow B. Thompson ◽  
Thomas V. Lowell
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Atmospheric Temperature ◽  
Laurentide Ice Sheet ◽  
White Mountains ◽  
Southern New England ◽  
Ice Sheet Dynamics ◽  
St Lawrence River

AbstractAt its late Pleistocene maximum, the Laurentide Ice Sheet was the largest ice mass on Earth and a key player in the modulation of global climate and sea level. At the same time, this temperate ice sheet was itself sensitive to climate, and high-magnitude fluctuations in ice extent, reconstructed from relict glacial deposits, reflect past changes in atmospheric temperature. Here, we present a cosmogenic 10Be surface-exposure chronology for the Berlin moraines in the White Mountains of northern New Hampshire, USA, which supports the model that deglaciation of New England was interrupted by a pronounced advance of ice during the Bølling-Allerød. Together with recalculated 10Be ages from the southern New England coast, the expanded White Mountains moraine chronology also brackets the timing of ice sheet retreat in this sector of the Laurentide. In conjunction with existing chronological data, the moraine ages presented here suggest that deglaciation was widespread during Heinrich Stadial 1 event (~18–14.7 ka) despite apparently cold marine conditions in the adjacent North Atlantic. As part of the White Mountains moraine system, the Berlin chronology also places a new terrestrial constraint on the former glacial configuration during the marine incursion of the St. Lawrence River valley north of the White Mountains.

Late glacial fluctuations of the Laurentide Ice Sheet in the White Mountains of Maine and New Hampshire, U.S.A.

2015 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 522-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon R.M. Bromley ◽  
Brenda L. Hall ◽  
Woodrow B. Thompson ◽  
Michael R. Kaplan ◽  
Juan Luis Garcia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Laurentide Ice Sheet ◽  
White Mountains ◽  
Northern New England ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Ice Sheet Dynamics ◽  
Complex Relationships

Prominent moraines deposited by the Laurentide Ice Sheet in northern New England document readvances, or stillstands, of the ice margin during overall deglaciation. However, until now, the paucity of direct chronologies over much of the region has precluded meaningful assessment of the mechanisms that drove these events, or of the complex relationships between ice-sheet dynamics and climate. As a step towards addressing this problem, we present a cosmogenic 10Be surface-exposure chronology from the Androscoggin moraine complex, located in the White Mountains of western Maine and northern New Hampshire, as well as four recalculated ages from the nearby Littleton–Bethlehem moraine. Seven internally consistent 10Be ages from the Androscoggin terminal moraines indicate that advance culminated ~ 13.2 ± 0.8 ka, in close agreement with the mean age of the neighboring Littleton–Bethlehem complex. Together, these two datasets indicate stabilization or advance of the ice-sheet margin in northern New England, at ~ 14–13 ka, during the Allerød/Greenland Interstadial I.

scholarly journals Till Stratigraphy and Late Wisconsinan Deglaciation of Southern Maine: A Review

2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Woodrow B. Thompson ◽  
Harold W. Borns Jr.
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Ocean Floor ◽  
Laurentide Ice Sheet ◽  
Marine Transgression ◽  
Coastal Lowland ◽  
Southern New England ◽  
Clay Deposits ◽  
Late Wisconsinan

ABSTRACT At least two glaciations are recorded by the till stratigraphy of southern Maine. A more deeply weathered lower till is tentatively correlated with the early Wisconsinan (or older) Nash Stream Till in New Hampshire and its inferred equivalents in southern New England and Québec. The Laurentide Ice Sheet flowed south-southeastward across southern Maine in late Wisconsinan time and deposited the upper till. By about 14,000 years ago the ice sheet started to recede from the Maine coast, and the high peaks of the Mahoosuc Range emerged as nunataks in western Maine. Marine transgression accompanied déglaciation of lowland areas of southern Maine, with deposition of end moraines, deltas, and subaqueous outwash along the active ice margin, while thick clay deposits of the Presumpscot Formation accumulated on the ocean floor. The ice margin retreated quickly, reaching the marine limit in central Maine by 13,000 yr BP. The Pineo Ridge moraine system in eastern Maine, formerly thought to represent a major readvance, is reinterpreted as a glacial stillstand near the marine limit. Deglaciation inland from the marine limit in eastern and southwestern Maine occurred by recession of an active ice margin in some areas, and elsewhere by stagnation and downwasting of ice that was separated from the active ice sheet. Southern Maine was ice-free by 12,000 yr BP. but marine submergence persisted until about 11,000 years ago in the southwestern coastal lowland.

scholarly journals Pre-Late Wisconsinan age for part of the glaciolacustrine stratigraphy, lower Peabody valley, northern White Mountains, Gorham, New Hampshire

2002 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian K. Fowler
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
River Valley ◽  
White Mountains ◽  
Southern New England ◽  
Stratigraphic Position ◽  
Late Wisconsinan

Abstract Interbedded till and glaciolacustrine deposits in the lower Peabody River Valley near Gorham, New Hampshire suggest multiple glacial advances occurred in the northern White Mountains. Previous workers disagreed on whether these advances were local or regional in nature, but thought they all occurred during the recessional phase of the Late Wisconsinan ice sheet. New stratigraphic and geomorphic reconnaissance, however, shows that a thick and regionally extensive till overlies this stratigraphy and that this till was emplaced by the last full-glacial episode to affect the region, the Late Wisconsinan glaciation. The stratigraphic position of this till makes the age of the underlying till and glaciolacustrine deposits pre-Late Wisconsinan and much older than previously assumed. This change in age assignment for part of the Peabody Valley stratigraphy supports the extension of the Illinoian-Late Wisconsinan "two-till" stratigraphy of central and southern New England into the region north of the White Mountain Highlands.

scholarly journals Deglaciation of the northwestern White Mountains, New Hampshire

2002 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Woodrow B. Thompson ◽  
Brian K. Fowler ◽  
Christopher C. Dorion
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
White Mountains ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Drainage Channels ◽  
Connecticut Valley ◽  
Late Wisconsinan ◽  
Climatic Cooling ◽  
Original Interpretation

Abstract The mode of deglaciation in the northwestern White Mountains of New Hampshire has been controversial since the mid 1800's. Early workers believed that active ice deposited the Bethlehem Moraine complex in the Ammonoosuc River basin during recession of the last ice sheet. In the 1930's this deglaciation model was replaced by the concept of widespread simultaneous stagnation and downwastage of Late Wisconsinan ice. The present authors reexamined the Bethlehem Moraine complex and support the original interpretation of a series of moraines deposited by active ice. We found other moraine clusters of similar age to the northeast in the Johns River and Israel River basins. Ice-marginal deposits that probably correlate with the Bethlehem Moraine also occur west of Littleton. The Bethlehem Moraine complex and equivalent deposits in adjacent areas were formed by readvance and oscillatory retreat of the Connecticut Valley lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. This event is called the Littleton-Bethlehem Readvance. Throughout the study area, sequences of glaciolacustrine deposits and meltwater drainage channels indicate progressive northward recession of the glacier margin. Radiocarbon dates from nearby New England and Québec suggest that the ice sheet withdrew from this part of the White Mountains between about 12 500 and 12 000 14 C yr BP. We attribute the Littleton- Bethlehem Readvance to a brief climatic cooling during Older Dyas time, close to 12,000 BP.

The Village District in New Hampshire

1946 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 962-965
Author(s):  
Lashley G. Harvey
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
The State ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Outward Appearance ◽  
White Mountains ◽  
State Tax ◽  
The Village ◽  
The Town ◽  
Railroad Station

Although legally buried since 1891, the “precinct” in New Hampshire, like Banquo's ghost, continually arises to baffle students of New England local government. To the lawmakers, it is known as the village district; while in its annual report the state tax commission lists village districts as precincts, only adding to the confusion.In making a count of governmental areas in New Hampshire, one finds the state divided into ten counties. Within these, there are eleven municipalities classed as cities and 224 towns. The cities were once towns, but have been incorporated as cities by the legislature, not in accordance with a population prerequisite, but upon application. The first city to be incorporated was Manchester in 1846.All New Hampshire cities and towns include within their limits a great deal of rural land. Clusters of houses or settlements are sprinkled over these areas. Frequently, a settlement has several stores, a post office, and a railroad station and has the outward appearance of a village. Legally, however, such a settlement is not a village. It is administered entirely as a part of the town or city in which it is located, although it may be several miles from the principal urban center. New Hampshire has 639 such settlements, none of which is incorporated. Villages are not incorporated in New Hampshire as they are in Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine. Frequently they are referred to as places, but they should not be confused with the 23 so-called “unincorporated places” (found principally in the White Mountains), which are administered by the county and state governments almost completely. However, there are a few of the “villagelike” settlements within unincorporated places.

Transport Direction of Peoria Loess in Nebraska and Implications for Loess Sources on the Central Great Plains

2001 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Mason
Keyword(s):  
Climatic Change ◽  
Great Plains ◽  
Source Region ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Laurentide Ice Sheet ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
River Floodplains ◽  
Transport Direction ◽  
Loess Deposition ◽  
Ice Sheet Dynamics

AbstractIn the midwestern United States, large rivers draining the Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) were the most important sources of Peoria Loess, deposited during the last glaciation. Loess deposition near those rivers may have responded primarily to ice-sheet dynamics rather than direct effects of climatic change. In contrast, it has been proposed that thick Peoria Loess on the central Great Plains was derived mainly from unglaciated landscapes northwest of the main loess deposits. In this study, transport directions inferred from more than 600 measurements of Peoria Loess thickness in Nebraska are used to test the hypothesis that much of the Peoria Loess on the Great Plains is nonglaciogenic. A strong northwest to southeast thickness trend indicates that most Peoria Loess in Nebraska was transported from one or more unglaciated northwestern source areas rather than from glacially influenced river floodplains. The Missouri River (draining the LIS), the Platte River (draining alpine glaciers), and the Elkhorn River (unglaciated basin) were secondary sources. Their contribution is not detectable beyond a distance of 40–60 km. Peoria Loess deposition on the central Great Plains was largely a direct response to climatic change in the unglaciated source region.

scholarly journals Late-Quaternary history of the alpine flora of the New Hampshire White Mountains

2002 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norton G. Miller ◽  
Ray W. Spear
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Vascular Plants ◽  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Plant Macrofossils ◽  
Cold Climate ◽  
Alpine Tundra ◽  
White Mountains ◽  
Alpine Zone

Abstract A distinctive flora of 73 species of vascular plants and numerous bryophytes occurs in the ca. 20 km 2 of alpine tundra in the White Mountains, New Hampshire. The late- Quaternary distribution of these plants, many of which are disjuncts, was investigated by studies of pollen and plant macrofossils from lower Lakes of the Clouds (1 542 m) in the alpine zone of Mount Washington. Results were compared with pollen and macrofossils from lowland late-glacial deposits in western New England. Lowland paleofloras contained fossils of 43 species of vascular plants, 13 of which occur in the contemporary alpine flora of the White Mountains. A majority of species in the paleoflora has geographic affinities to Labrador, northern Québec, and Greenland, a pattern also apparent for mosses in the lowland deposits. The first macrofossils in lower Lakes of the Clouds were arctic-alpine mosses of acid soils. Although open-ground mosses and vascular plants continued to occur throughout the Holocene, indicating that alpine tundra persisted, fossils of a low-elevation moss Hylocomiastrum umbratum are evidence that forest (perhaps as krummholz) covered a greater area near the basin from 7 500 to 3 500 yBP. No calcicolous plants were recovered from sediments at lower Lakes of the Clouds. Climatic constraints on the alpine flora during the Younger Dryas oscillation and perhaps during other cold-climate events and intervening periods of higher temperature may have led to the loss of plant species in the White Mountain alpine zone. Late-glacial floras of lowland western New England were much richer than floras of areas above treeline during late-glacial time and at the present.

Cosmogenic nuclide age estimate for Laurentide Ice Sheet recession from the terminal moraine, New Jersey, USA, and constraints on latest Pleistocene ice sheet history

2017 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 482-498 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee B. Corbett ◽  
Paul R. Bierman ◽  
Byron D. Stone ◽  
Marc W. Caffee ◽  
Patrick L. Larsen
Keyword(s):  
New Jersey ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Laurentide Ice Sheet ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Terminal Moraine ◽  
Cosmogenic Nuclide ◽  
Fluvial Incision ◽  
Exposure Ages

AbstractThe time at which the Laurentide Ice Sheet reached its maximum extent and subsequently retreated from its terminal moraine in New Jersey has been constrained by bracketing radiocarbon ages on preglacial and postglacial sediments. Here, we present measurements of in situ produced 10Be and 26Al in 16 quartz-bearing samples collected from bedrock outcrops and glacial erratics just north of the terminal moraine in north-central New Jersey; as such, our ages represent a minimum limit on the timing of ice recession from the moraine. The data set includes field and laboratory replicates, as well as replication of the entire data set five years after initial measurement. We find that recession of the Laurentide Ice Sheet from the terminal moraine in New Jersey began before 25.2±2.1 ka (10Be, n=16, average, 1 standard deviation). This cosmogenic nuclide exposure age is consistent with existing limiting radiocarbon ages in the study area and cosmogenic nuclide exposure ages from the terminal moraine on Martha’s Vineyard ~300 km to the northeast. The age we propose for Laurentide Ice Sheet retreat from the New Jersey terminal position is broadly consistent with regional and global climate records of the last glacial maximum termination and records of fluvial incision.

Surface exposure dating of the Pierre Sublobe of the James Lobe, Laurentide Ice Sheet

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 ◽  
pp. 88-98
Author(s):  
Stephanie L. Heath ◽  
Thomas V. Lowell ◽  
Brenda L. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Age Dating ◽  
Laurentide Ice Sheet ◽  
Des Moines Lobe ◽  
Exposure Dating ◽  
Des Moines ◽  
Contrast Exposure ◽  
Ice Sheet Dynamics ◽  
Exposure Ages

AbstractThe Laurentide Ice Sheet of the last glacial period terminated in several lobes along its southern margin. The timing of maximum extent may have varied among the terminal lobes owing to internal ice sheet dynamics and spatially variable external controls. Some terminal ice lobes, such as the westernmost James Lobe, remain poorly dated. To determine the timing of maximum ice extent in this key location, we have mapped glacial deposits left by the Pierre Sublobe in South Dakota and applied 10Be surface exposure age dating on boulders on moraine ridges associated with three distinct late Quaternary glacial drifts. The oldest and most extensive “Tazewell” drift produced variable 10Be surface exposure ages spanning 20–7 ka; the large range is likely attributable to moraine degradation and subsequent boulder exhumation. The oldest ages of about 20 ka are probably limiting minimum ages for the Tazewell moraine surfaces. By contrast, exposure ages of the youngest “Mankato” drift of the easternmost Pierre Sublobe tightly cluster at about 16 ka. This age for the Pierre Sublobe is consistent with the nearby Des Moines Lobe, suggesting both acted together.

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