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A 10,000 yr B.P. Extensive Ice Shelf over Viscount Melville Sound, Arctic Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Douglas A. Hodgson  and
Jean-Serge Vincent
Douglas A. Hodgson
Affiliation:
Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E8, Canada
Jean-Serge Vincent
Affiliation:
Geological Survey of Canada, 601 Booth Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E8, Canada
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Abstract

Late Wisconsinan age glacial landforms and deposits indicate that an ice shelf of at least 60,000 km2 flowed northwestward into Viscount Melville Sound, probably from the M'Clintock Dome of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The ice shelf overlapped coastal areas and laid Winter Harbour Till up to 125 m above present sea level on the southern coast of Melville Island, to 135 m on Byam Martin Island, to possibly 90 m on the northeast tip of Banks Island, and to 150 m on the north coast of Victoria Island. The contemporary sea level was 50 to 100 m higher than present (it now rises eastward). A maximum age of 10,340 ± 150 yr B.P. for the till, and thus the ice-shelf advance, is provided by shells in marine sediments which underlie it, whereas a minimum age of 9880 ± 150 yr B.P. is provided by overlying shells that postdate the ice advance. The major advance of shelf ice into Viscount Melville Sound may be the result of the rapid disintegration of the M'Clintock Dome while the climate ameliorated in the western Arctic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , July 1984 , pp. 18 - 30
Copyright
University of Washington

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