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Late Pleistocene Chronology and Environment of the “Ice-Free Corridor” of Northwestern Alberta

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

James M. White ,
Rolf W. Mathewes  and
W. H. Mathews
James M. White
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada
Rolf W. Mathewes
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada
W. H. Mathews
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 2B4, Canada
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Abstract

Pollen and macrofossil analyses of two radiocarbon-dated lake sediment cores in the upper Peace River district were used to investigate the controversial late-glacial geochronology of the “ice-free corridor.” The basal mineral-rich sediments contain reworked, radiogenically “dead” palynomorphs, as well as intrusive “modern” carbon. Analyses of the basal sediments from Boone Lake show that two 14C ages greater than 12,000 yr B.P. are spuriously old due to contamination by organic matter of Cretaceous age. The data support occlusion or near occlusion of Laurentide and Cordilleran ice in the Peace River area during the late Wisconsinan period. The sediment record began around 12.000 yr B.P. in the ice-dammed and enlarged Boone Lake. An initially open, sedge-dominated cover was invaded by sage, willow, grass, and poplar by 11,700 yr B.P., suggesting that a habitable landscape has existed in the area for at least 12 millennia. The data, however, do not support the ice-free corridor arguments of B. O. K. Reeves (1973, Arctic and Alpine Research 5, 1–16; 1983, In “Quaternary Coastlines and Marine Archaeology: Towards the Prehistory of Land Bridges and Continental Shelves” (P. M. Masters and N. C. Fleming, Eds.), pp. 389–411. Academic Press, New York), who suggests that ice occlusion did not occur in the Peace River Valley during the last 55,000 yr.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , July 1985 , pp. 173 - 186
Copyright
University of Washington

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