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Regional Significance of an Early Holocene Moraine in Enchantment Lakes Basin, North Cascade Range, Washington

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Richard B. Waitt Jr. ,
James C. Yount  and
P. Thompson Davis
Richard B. Waitt Jr.
Affiliation:
U.S. Geological Survey, 5400 MacArthur Boulevard, Vancouver, Washington, 98661
James C. Yount
Affiliation:
U.S. Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Road, Menlo Park, California 94025
P. Thompson Davis
Affiliation:
Department of Geology & Geography, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts 01075
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Abstract

The upper Enchantment Lakes basin in the North Cascade Range of Washington displays two moraine belts, each recording an episode of glacier advance after the end of the last glaciation. The inner belt, the Brynhild, 0.1 to 0.5 km beyond existing glaciers, postdates Mount St. Helens Wn tephra (∼450 yr old), which lies only beyond the moraines. The morainal surface is only slightly weathered, is almost barren of lichens, and is devoid of soil, evidence suggesting that the Brynhild moraines are no more than a century old. The outer moraine, the Brisingamen, 0.3 to 0.7 km beyond existing glaciers, is weathered and is covered with large lichens. On and behind the Brisingamen moraine the Mazama ash (6900 yr old) is present beneath the Mount St. Helens Yn and Wn tephras. Despite more than 7 millennia of weathering, the rock surface behind the Brisingamen moraine is measurably less weathered than the surface beyond, which was last glaciated during the Rat Creek advance about 13,000 yr ago. The age of the Brisingamen moraine therefore is probably early Holocene. The Brisingamen moraine evidently correlates with moraines near Glacier Peak, near Mount Rainier, in northeastern and central Oregon, in the southern Canadian Rockies, and in the northern U.S. Rocky Mountains. These regional effects suggest that a climatic episode of cooling or increased snowfall affected the entire region some time during the early Holocene.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , March 1982 , pp. 191 - 210
Copyright
University of Washington

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